Eagle - Osprey Antics Catch Lido Shores Attention

Editors note: Following our story about the eagle - osprey feud, Ken and Carrie Cox shared their perspective of the on-going antics near our Lido Shores beach access and in their yard that fronts the Gulf. Our thanks for the great photos and the following note.

~BT
bthill@icloud.com

Thoroughly enjoyed your email (web posting) today, thanks! Ken and I thought we would send along a few more photos to illustrate what we’ve been having fun referring to as “Real Birds of Sarasota”, meaning the antics of the nesting eagles and osprey. It’s another wonderful aspect of living in Lido Shores that we are privileged to have both bald eagles and osprey as neighbors. 

Osprey's setting up shop on platform in Cox's yard facing the Gulf.

The young osprey pair has actually been working on a nest on the platform in our yard for several seasons now - at least we think it’s the same pair, but who can really tell. We think they did flirt with trading up to the McInerney’s platform, but came back to their original nest after a few days – as you say, perhaps lost out to the eagles. 

In fact, both pairs have been stealing nesting material from each other, so let’s hope they settle down to parenting soon instead of raiding each others’ roost (and Tom’s poor tiki hut). We’ve attached a few photos of the eagle helping itself to sticks from the osprey nest. This is a near daily event: the osprey bring sticks to the nest most of the morning (probably stealing some from the eagles) and the eagles come over every late afternoon and steal sticks from the osprey nest.

Eagle poaching some nesting material from the osprey platform

 

Also, here's a photo series of the eagle intimidating a heron who was standing in our yard out by the sea wall, which culminated with the eagle stealing the remainder of the heron’s fish. This was last weekend during the stormy days, so made for some dramatic shots Ken was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to capture.

All in all a joy to see these magnificent birds!

~ Carrie and Ken Cox

Eagle flies away with half eaten fish 

Checking out what to take next

Flying back to Tom McInerney's platform with osprey's nesting material 

Osprey nest at Ken & Carrie Cox's

Hanging out in Cox's yard