Ferrous_Hominid - 25-9-2013 at 01:13 PM
Hello! A strange thing happened and I was wondering if anyone else has had the same experience...
I was flying my Prism Quantum at a tiny beach called Fort Island in Florida, off of the Gulf of Mexico, and an Osprey (Sea-Hawk) started
coasting in behind my Kite right on the edge of the wind zone. I could tell it was interested, so I lead the kite right to the edge of the zone and
parked it.
Now this is a large bird. He might run across the occasional Bald Eagle, but it'll attack that Eagle and steal his fish.
So this 6 foot (180cm) tip-to-tip Hawk creeps up behind my 7 foot kite and literally GETS ON TOP.
Now, I'm obviously not saying that it landed on top of the Quantum, although for a moment I thought it was going to sink its talons into the
kite and take it to the ground...
...but it hovered. Maybe just a foot off of the top of the kite. Gliding together with it. Matching slight movements the kite was making.
Moving it's head back and forth, looking at the kite's "wings"...
...it was incredible. And nobody saw it. No camera phones, no beach-goers. Maybe for 15-30 seconds my kite and a Hawk flew inches apart. For a few
minutes they flew in formation, like geese do, the kite cutting the flow of air, the Osprey catching the updraft from the kite.
And I was the only witness, it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. and the sensation it gave me was indescribable. Some extension
of myself was flying wing to wing with one of the fastest predators in the world, and I'll never forget it.
...so: Does this happen all the time? Or was this as amazing as it felt? I mean, whether it is common or not, it was amazing. But how common
is it?? Any other experiences like this? Either way, hope you enjoyed the story.
Further research: I guess this has happened before, enclosed is a pic from Flickr of an Osprey attacking (what looks like a Prism Quantum) Kite. Also
enclosed: a pic of an Osprey that looked exactly like "mine".
snowspider - 25-9-2013 at 02:24 PM
There is ospreys on the lake where I fly , none swinging by to check on my kites. The buzzards will definately come in closer and look it over but
don't really hang around , same thing with the seagulls , they just kind of eyeball it and move on.
ssayre - 25-9-2013 at 02:56 PM
That happened to me the other day with a couple of hawks, but they weren't really matching the movements of my kite they just come in and took a
closer look. I thought it was pretty cool too.
B-Roc - 25-9-2013 at 11:14 PM
I use to fly sport kites in an area where there were red tailed hawks and they would on occasion check out my sport kites as if they were either
curious or trying to determine if it was a potential threat to their nearby nest.
bigkid - 25-9-2013 at 11:49 PM
The only bird action for me was when I disturbed a flock of seagulls on the beach as I zoomed by. One of the gulls got wrapped up in my kite line and
made the kite, lines, and gull crash to the beach in a mess. I spent a while cleaning up the rat nest lines and removing the poop from the lines and
kite.
Like always no one but me to share the excitement with. I do have a couple of feathers that was left in the lines.
Wish I could have been able to hear the gull explain what happened to his buddies.
Tibi - 26-9-2013 at 01:05 PM
On a sunny day I was in the park with my daughter. She was flying a one liner... that was high in the sky. We witnessed a bald eagle that almost
attacked the moving dark shadow of the kite on the ground. Initially I thought it was going after my daughter... but it was not. The behavior of the
eagle changed very obvious from soaring mode to attack when this happened, but it took only a few seconds for the eagle to realize the shadow was not
prey.
Cheddarhead - 26-9-2013 at 03:40 PM
Being in a city next to Lake Michigan we get lots of curious Seagulls that like to eyeball my kites when I'm out. My Quantum has colors similiar to
McDonalds, perhaps that's why they like it:D