Hurt Osprey

In an attempt to keep our blog interesting to read and since it's the middle of winter and not much is going on and the spring projects have yet to start we are using some stories that that have happened here at Aspen Resort over the years. A few years ago we found this Osprey (pictured) struggling out in the lake. the weird thing was that it's mate kept swooping down and it looked like it was trying to grab it and help it out of the water. At first we thought it might have been tangled in some fishing line but when we got one of our boats close enough to it we realized that it had broken it's wing. Probably on impact while fishing. It took several attemps to get him out of the lake and into the boat. We used the oar from the boat and put it underneath him and he would climb on the oar, but he kept jumping off when we would get him close to the boat. I guess he finally realized he was going to drown if he didn't get in the boat. Once we got him into the boat we realized what a massive bird he was and how small the boat seemed once we got a look at his beak and talons. Once we got him to shore we got him caged and calmed down and contacted someone that was experienced in injured birds. She got him a free ride on an Northwest Airlines flight down to the Raptor Center in Minneapolis where it had surgery to repair it's broken radius and ulna in it's wing. After it's recovery we were told it was released back to the wild.