The scenery changed after several hours traveling to the north. Gone were the mile after mile of condos and mansions. There were still many large, beautiful homes, but not packed in so tightly. The scenery also changed to more of a wild life sanctuary. At one point there was a large state park and refuge on the ocean side of us.
It was so quiet today that the only thing of interest I can blog about, or bore you about, are the Ospreys we saw. So here is your Osprey lesson.
The birds mate for life and build stick
nests way up high in dead trees or on platforms built for them out over open water. The pair returns to the same nest year after year and add more sticks. Some of the nests weigh up to a thousand pounds. That’s a lot of sticks!They live around 20 to 30 years. Nesting season is between December and February so we saw many birds in nests that we passed. Their eggs are about the same size as a chicken’s.
Their primary diet is fish. This one has a fish in its grasp but didn’t appear to be eating it. Maybe it was taking it back to the mate who was in the nest incubating the eggs.
The Osprey, like the owl, has the ability to rotate one its 3 front toes to the back when it catches something so it can grip it with two toes in the front and two in the back. Pretty handy, huh? Especially when you’re trying to hang on to a slippery wriggling fish.
They can spot fish in the water from up to 130’ and then plunge feet first to grab them. Another handy feature Ospreys’ have is closeable nostrils in their beak to keep water from flying up them when they hit the water surface. Don’t you just hate when you get saltwater up your beak?
Our destination for the evening was Sunset Bay Marina at Stuart. Stuart is about 7 miles off the ICW up the St. Lucie River. It is a very nice marina with solid wide docks and the best laundry facility I’ve encountered on the trip so far. Nice showers too. And ya, Tami and I did laundry for the next few hours after arriving here.
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