Photography Wild Delmarva on 22 May 2009 08:38 am
flying fish
At the top of the seafood food chain Osprey feed almost exclusively on live fish. Our Osprey population declined between the 1950s and the 1980s because of agricultural use of DDT, a synthetic insecticide that made its way into fish. Eating fish with DDT caused Osprey egg shells to become thin and break during incubation. DDT use was banned in 1972 and once the insecticide worked its way out of the ecosystem Delmarva’s Osprey populations rebounded. This male Osprey is eating an Atlantic Menhaden just after sunrise this morning.
Photograph by Kevin Fleming
