Return of the Osprey

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Sex, savagery, and murder inside this enormous tangle of sticks piled high with strange objects, including a half-naked Barbie doll: It’s just another day at the unruly nest of a family of ospreys.

The osprey was nearly driven into extinction by the chemical DDT, but now it’s back in the marshes and along the shorelines across the United States, wheeling in its aerial hunt for fish and thrilling observers with its spectacular dives.

Be careful not to romanticize this raptor, says the writer David Gessner. He spent months observing the ospreys near his Cape Cod home. He only began to see the birds, he says, when he forced himself to live on “osprey time.” What he learned was not just about ospreys, but about himself as well.
(Hosted by Dick Gordon)

Guests:

David Gessner, author, “Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder.”