It is incredible to me how quickly the osprey young have mastered flight; not just learned, but mastered. I have watched them do maneuvers I have not even seen their parents perform. Sometimes, it is out of a lack of experience, but still, they succeeded at what they were attempting. I would have thought they would be up in the air practicing almost constantly, but that has not turned out to be the case. They spend long periods of inactivity just like their parents (sigh) sitting in trees preening, sleeping, and simply looking around scanning the horizon, hoping to spot a parent returning with a fish.
Their cry is one way to tell that a parent is headed in their direction and I will look for the small dot in the sky that they spotted thirty seconds earlier with their keen eyesight. They have spread out more too as the days have passed since leaving the nest. They use to stay fairly close to the nest, but now they are just as apt to be found in the treeline a quarter mile down the river or up the river as to be near the nest. Except for one who still sits in the sycamore tree and whom I assume is the runt.
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