Western Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
About the Western Osprey
The osprey (Pandion haliaetus), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and a wingspan of 180 cm (71 in). It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts. The osprey is distributed on all continents except Antarctica, but in South America, it occurs only as a nonbreeding migrant. It lives in a wide variety of habitats and nests in locations near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It has specialised physical characteristics and unique behaviour in hunting its prey, which consists almost exclusively of fish.
A real field recording of the Western Osprey. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
2 recordings on this page · licensed CC BY-SA ×2 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 359 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Eastern OspreyPandion cristatusprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.