Blog #293 Bidding Ophelia Farewell

Ophelia and fledgling, courtesy of Karel and Cindy Sedlacek. 

Ophelia, the grand dame of Salt Point, having completed her parental duties for the year  began her 4K+/- migration to South America. (A single osprey can log more than  160,000 miles migrating during its 20-year lifetime!) It had been a long spring and summer for her, spending all her time nurturing and enduring harsh conditions to protect  her growing family. This is her eighth breeding season with Orpheus, and they have  produced twenty fledglings, one of which died in an accident. 

Earlier in the week she soared high into the north wind, letting it take her south through  Pennsylvania. Ophelia will migrate down the Appalachian mountains making use of the  thermals forming on the mountain sides to glide during much of her journey. She’ll head  

toward the coast of the Carolinas and continue south along the coastline to the Florida  peninsula. From there she will go to Cuba and island hop her way to Venezuela.  Crossing the Caribbean is a necessary yet dangerous feat, but the reward is wintering  in the warm tropics. After reaching Venezuela, she might go along an interior fish-rich  wetland river or follow the coast. GPS tags on Ospreys have demonstrated that the 

adult females tend to fly farther south than the males and are sometimes found as far  south as Argentina. 

Ophelia with a fish, courtesy of Karel and Cindy Sedlacek. 

As the sun sets on a fascinating week filled with the magic and majesty of flight, the  words of theoretical physicist, teacher, raconteur, and musician Richard P. Feynman  (1918–1988) ring true. Like a modern-day Renaissance man, Feynman assisted in the  

Ophelia flying from nest with a fish, courtesy of Karel and Cindy Sedlacek.

development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantum  electrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and was an eloquent scientist.  Feynman’s many lectures and interviews helped popularize quantum physics, much as  Carl Sagan made astronomy accessible to the layperson. 

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you are finished, you will know absolutely nothing about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what really counts. (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name 

of something and knowing something.) 

 —Richard P. Feynman, Making of a Scientist Eyes to the sky! 

Candace 

Candace E. Cornell 

Friends of Salt Point 

Lansing, NY 

cec222@gmail.com 

ALL EYES ON OSPREYS  

WATCH!  

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READ!  

On Osprey Time 

Ospreys of Salt Point 

VISIT!  

Cayuga Lake Osprey Trail

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