Mark was hanging around the causeway on Sunday, checking out the fishing action. The woman next to him threw out her fishing line and inadvertently caught an osprey's wing. He was circling low to catch fish and he got caught instead.
The bird was brought down to the water with the fishing line and it appeared its wing was broken. The bird was unable to fly and was being carried away by the current. The disabled osprey floated under the drawbridge and was heading out to Caledesi Island when Mark ran to that side of the causeway to begin the rescue.
With it traveling so quickly beyond the beach, Mark asked some jet skiers to retrieve the bird and bring it to shore. It took several jet skiers to accomplish this as no one wanted to get bitten. The bird was finally laid on a jetski foothold and driven to shore, but it laid motionless. Mark called me and I contacted the Honeymoon Island park ranger station where they prepared a cage for the wounded bird. Mark gently wrapped the osprey in his shirt to keep it contained in case it started fighting, and brought it to the rangers.
The rangers quickly caged the bird and took it to the shelter. Mark was worried all day for that bird. He worried that the bird's spouse would be waiting for the fish it was catching. And when it was clear the mate wasnt returning, they wouldnt be able to leave the nest to hunt food.
So, we went out to Honeymoon Island for sunset and to ask the ranger about the osprey. He sadly said that the vet had to put the bird down. That in addition to a broken wing, it had an illness that was weakening the bird and that it couldnt be cured.
Mark was devastated. But I assured him that since this bird was really sick, it likely didn't have a spouse and a nest to support. So there wouldnt be a waiting spouse.
We watched a wonderful sunset at the beach that evening, while the birds were actively catching dinner, and the dolphins were doing their synchronized sunset dance. And that is the way nature works.
1 comment:
Oh, Mark, what a great thing you did for that bird. My hero! I know how much it hurt you, though, and how much you identified with it and worried about its family.
I had a similar experience one Sunday morning years ago. I was driving down a road, when a pickup pulled out of a driveway and into the road in front of me. When the truck took off, a tiny kitten tumbled out of the truck's wheel well where it had been hiding. The tiny thing ran off, though it was clearly injured. I spent hours searching for it in the bushes by the roadside. Greg and I finally found it and took it to the emergency vet, where we waited more hours to see the vet, the kitten in a box on my lap, suffering and in shock. Finally, we got in and found out it had a broken pelvis. We had to leave it overnight. The next morning I picked it up and took it to my normal vet (because the ER vet doesn't keep animals during the week). Later that day, the poor thing died from internal bleeding. I cried for days. You'd think I'd lost a child, and that's just how I felt.
Anyway, you did your best for that bird, and that's something to be proud of.
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