Osprey

Deltaville, VA

No LL

Osprey are wonderful birds of prey. The thrill of seeing them ranks just below sighting of bald eagles, and above sightings of turkey vultures and hawks. After 5 years we are also used to the squawks and sounds that Osprey make.

Osprey are great fishermen. They swoop down and grab surface fish with their talons showing great skill. Most fun is watching an Osprey trying to fly away with a fish that's much too big and too heavy to handle. That happens more often than I expected. Usually, after a valiant try the overloaded osprey drops its catch from several hundred feet up.

We see Osprey all the way up and down the East Coast. Here in the Chesapeake however, their numbers are overwhelming. It seems that each and every post stuck in the mud of Chesapeake waters for any reason has an Osprey sitting on it. Many of them also have nests. As we pass close to the red and green day markers we are used to catching glimpses into the nests to see youngsters waiting for their food. If mother is home, she squawks angrily at us for passing too close.

p.s. We changed our minds about staying in Urbanna yesterday and backtracked to Deltaville. Today we'll enjoy showers, Internet and washing machines. Tomorrow, I think, we'll head to Solomons.

The weather report for the next week shows no signs of a window to go outside. Therefore, I'm resigned to motoring up the Chesapeake and down the Delaware. That sounds bad, but only in comparison to the high of making an offshore passage. The inland route is also 200 miles longer and we'll have to motor almost all of it. I'm afraid we have become spoiled by two years of unusually good luck in finding the right winds at the right times to do our passages.