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Over the years, I have seen a great many animals near our island summer home in Harpswell: cormorants, gulls, owls, hummingbirds, ospreys, red squirrels, wild turkeys, eagles, crows, terns, occasional woodpeckers, seals, fisher cats, deer (who are surprisingly good swimmers) and vols (who destroy the garden with relish). All of them are part of the local ecosystem. We habitate together. They go about their daily routines, and I go about mine. I like to think that we have some kind of unspoken respect for one another. At times, I have wanted to get close to some of these critters, even cuddle them, but I have decided that behavior would be gauche — like bursting out laughing during a piano recital — even if it were possible. Although living together, we each have our own space, the animals and me.
For many years, a family of ospreys lived nearby, in an enormous nest about 50 yards from the house. Like many other ospreys, my ospreys flew to South America for the cold months and then returned to the nest in the spring. From scientific research, we know that the same pair of parent ospreys will return to the same nest year after year, after their long vacation thousands of miles away, miraculously finding their way back home. The children from the previous season do not come back to the ancestral nest, but make their own nests nearby. Then the parents raise a new brood, and the cycle repeats.
After winter vacation, the first order of business is always to repair the damage done by winter storms. Many new branches and sticks must be added to the nest. As many people know, ospreys are quite promiscuous when it comes to building materials. They will enlist not only branches and sticks, but also colored pieces of paper and cardboard, random pieces of fabric, and flotsam and jetsam lying on the shore. One year, my ospreys even used part of an orange fishing net they found God knows where to shore up the nest. It was an odd sight, that net draping down from the nest as if a last-minute decorative touch.
Each season for many years, my wife and I would eagerly observe the birds’ rituals and habits. We memorized the different chirps they made for danger, for hunger, for the arrival of food. A large picture window faced the nest, so it was Osprey-TV, 24/7.
Upon arrival at the nest in mid-April, mother osprey would lay her eggs. In late May or early June, the eggs hatched. As the father dutifully brought fish dinners to the nest each day, the babies would grow bigger and bigger, and in mid-August, they were large enough to make their maiden flight.
The young ospreys would seem to get cabin fever in early August, a couple of weeks before having the strength to become airborne. For several days before this first flight, the adolescent birds would flap their wings mightily, lift off a few feet in the air, and then fall back into the nest, the horsepower or self-confidence not quite enough to leave home. When the youngsters did manage to fly for the first time, father osprey would sit in a nearby tree squawking loudly, possibly giving instructions and flight lessons to his young progeny. Mother osprey would remain on the nest, a proud spectator of the performance.
My story concerns one late August afternoon, some years ago. The two juvenile ospreys of that season took flight for the first time as I stood observing them from our second-floor circular deck. All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them, getting bigger and bigger. The circular deck is about nest high, so to the fledgling birds it must have looked like I was in my nest just as they were in theirs.
On this particular afternoon, their maiden flight, they did a wide, half-mile loop out over the ocean and then headed straight at me with tremendous speed. A juvenile osprey, although slightly smaller than a full-grown adult, is still a large bird, with powerful and sharp talons. My immediate impulse was to run for cover, since the birds could have ripped my face off. But something held me there. When they were within 15 or 20 feet of me, the two birds suddenly veered upward and away. But before that dazzling and frightening vertical climb, for about a second, we made eye contact. They looked right at me.
Words cannot convey what was exchanged between us in that instant. It was a look of connectedness, of mutual respect, of recognition that we shared the same land. It was a look that said, as clear as spoken words, “We are brothers in this place.”
After the two young ospreys were gone, I found that I was shaking, and in tears. To this day, I don’t understand what happened in that second. But it was a profound connection to nature, the most profound I have ever experienced. And a feeling of being part of something much larger than myself.
About a decade ago, that tree with the osprey’s nest came down during a winter storm. When I returned for the summer season, the nest was gone. I have no idea where those ospreys are now, or the children from that particular season in August. But, I remember them. And I hope, on wintry days and dark nights, wherever they are, that they remember me.
