Osprey Yellowstone                       click to enlarge

For the Osprey in Yellowstone fast food doesn’t mean ordering the quarter trouter or the Flopper from one of the fast food joints along the river. It means once you have your meal you better eat it as fast as you can get your little beak moving because everybody and their uncle is off camera just waiting to take it a way from you. Possession is no guarantee of a finished lunch.

Osprey like this one are renowned fish catchers. It’s what they do. They invented the fish sandwich. But that doesn’t stop some of the bigger kids in the neighborhood from swooping in and taking it away from him. A bald eagle will charge an osprey causing it to abandon his meal to the feathered bully. When hungry, other raptors may take advantage and try for his fish, even other osprey will attempt to steal a meal when they get a chance. The only real defense is to get the meal that’s outside inside as quickly as possible. Hence Fast Food.

This fellow made quick work of this trout a la carte but had to keep a wary eye in the sky as there was another pair of osprey flying above, watching him watch them, just waiting for a chance to get a freebie. It helped that he was a pretty big fella for an osprey and his belligerent pose kept the other two at bay until he finished his meal. There aren’t many quiet, slow dining experiences in the park unless maybe you’re a grizzly who happens to be alone on an elk carcass. But then, even he has to watch out for another bigger grizzly, or a pack of wolves that will harass him until he leaves out of sheer frustration, kind of like when you get seated next to a family with nine children under the age of five at your favorite restaurant. No happy meals for anybody then.