Ospreys and Swallows at Tilghman Island

     My wife, Sue, and I parked on a boat dock by a backwater on Tilghman Island, Maryland, just off Chesapeake Bay one early evening in the beginning of August to enjoy a picnic supper in our car.  It was an overcast, windy evening and we could see white caps and spray on the Chesapeake Bay caused by the strong wind.  And the only birds we saw from our car in an hour's time were a pair of adult ospreys huddled low and tight in their bulky stick and twig nest on a cluster of pilings close to the dock, and several barn swallows swirling, swooping and power flying into the wind while they seemed to be catching airborne insects blown by the wind over the backwater.
      The ospreys faced the wind so the wind wouldn't ruffle their feathers and were as low in their cradle as they could get to avoid being tossed about.  But even so the feathers on their necks, wings and backs were tugged by the wind so hard I thought they would be torn from the living birds.
     Meanwhile, the swallows were entertaining flying high and low, and nonchalantly into the wind, and swinging swiftly around with it, without once colliding with one another.  Even then they had excellent flight control that was impressive, and entertaining to us as we dined in a wind-rocked car.
     Both the ospreys and barn swallows responded to the high winds with, seemingly, little concern; maybe even with a sense of adventure.  After all, they are used to all kinds of weather and adverse conditions and took the wind "in stride".
     Tilghman Island and the St. Michael's area are on a peninsula that juts west, then curves south into the Chesapeake Bay from the city of Easton on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  This peninsula is bordered on the north by Miles River, Chesapeake Bay to the west and the broad Choptank River to the south.  The peninsula is flat and covered with deciduous woods, corn fields and soybean fields, with hedgerows of trees, bushes and vines separating many of the fields.  There also are wetlands along some backwater shorelines, tiny villages and scattered homes on the peninsula, which offer other kinds of wildlife habitats, and lovely, peaceful scenery.
     Ospreys commonly nest on this peninsula for a variety of reasons.  First, for whatever reason, there are few bald eagles in this section of the Chesapeake.  Ospreys don't nest where bald eagles are because the eagles are bigger and stronger than ospreys and usurp osprey nurseries and rob the weaker birds of their fish prey, their only source of food. 
     Secondly, ospreys have adapted to using buoys, clustered pilings, and platforms especially erected for ospreys to nest on, all of which are on or above the water in backwaters.  Those built structures have greatly increased osprey numbers along this peninsula.  Someone estimated that 97 percent of today's ospreys nest on artificial structures.  And the Chesapeake Bay, in spite of its past water quality problems, now has the largest breeding population of ospreys in the world.  Ospreys have adapted to human activities and are not afraid to raise young near those activities.  Ospreys being protected from shooting and trapping has also increased their boldness and numbers.
     Ospreys are entertaining when hunting fish over larger bodies of water.  They flap and soar over a lake or river, while watching the water for larger fish.  When a vulnerable fish is noticed near the surface of the water, an osprey folds its wings and dives to the surface to grab the fish in its curved, pointed talons, partly submerging into the water upon impact.  Within seconds, however, the osprey rises from the water, often with its victim in its claws, and flies heavily with its burden to a tree, boulder or other object to eat its prey.            
     Ospreys and barn swallows are in the northern United States only during the warmer months to raise young.  Barn swallows are common on this peninsula, as they are throughout much of North America, because most of them today rear offspring in barns and under bridges and docks.  By fall, both species migrate south where they find reliable sources of food, but next spring they push north again, and entertain us with their daily activities.