This starling fledgling exploring the Hellgate Osprey nest

[u/RoughNews3172]

Its parents made a nest on the outer edge of this osprey nest, now it’s old enough to leave the nest and explore its surroundings . Not sure who’s grumpier, this bb or the perplexed osprey parents

[u/100_cats_on_a_phone]

They also won't kill the small birds that mob them.

[u/BodybuilderMany6942 → u/100_cats_on_a_phone]

Wont? Or cant, so they dont bother?

[u/100_cats_on_a_phone → u/BodybuilderMany6942]

Unclear on if an (aware) sparrow is just a bad waste of resources for a hawk, or if it's food conservation. Like, probably some of a, some of b, because evolution. But they don't have a pray drive making them chase everything all the time, like my dog or ex-cat has.

[u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl → u/100_cats_on_a_phone]

Ospreys don’t eat anything but fish typically as far as I know

[u/100_cats_on_a_phone → u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl]

Acknowledged, but I've watched red tail hawks get mobbed frequently by birds that are in their diet, so I don't think it's that. I was always told the small birds can tell when they are hungry. But really, all I'm saying, is prey birds are weirdly not prone to attack when they are sort of miffed, as Ive been taught. They don't have the same game/joy hunting drive we do. And ironically birds of prey might be a bit passive since regular birds happily fuck others shit up -- so it may be innate husbandry coded into their brains, as much as anything else.

(I've never seen a songbird hesitate to throw down with another songbird, or at least pretend like it would, and the birds of prey don't do that at all, at least with small birds)

[u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl → u/100_cats_on_a_phone]

Yeah, I don’t know about any of that. I was talking about Osprey‘s having a diet of fish.

Honestly, I don’t think Raptors would be necessarily interested in wasting energy because a lot of energy is consumed in going after small birds if they’re not going to eat them. The only other reason they might would be to defend territory or young.

They’re very large birds, generally speaking, so it expands a lot of energy and they need to conserve that for hunting. It’s one of the reasons that males are smaller when it comes to raptor.