Ospreys, red light, green light.

I know a place. If you let me take you there, you’ll see Ospreys. This is what I said to a friend.

We went to the sure-fire Osprey place and there were no Ospreys. What’s more, the place itself wasn’t even there.

I hadn’t visited for a while, but didn’t expect it to be gone. It had been Osprey habitat. Now it was a nature park.

Landscaped hills, trails, a café and a tram. The water was still there, but the wildness wasn’t. This happened while I wasn’t looking.

I thought of the kids’ game, red light, green light. You face away from a bunch of players who sneak up behind you while you say green light.

You turn suddenly, say red light, and they have to be motionless.

But there’s this odd feeling when you see them: The group has changed while you hadn’t been watching.

The wider world is like that. You turn your back on it, and think it’s going to stay the way it was, but it doesn’t.

The home you grew up in has been torn down. Your old school is a shopping mall.

When you hit the road, hotels you once stayed in don’t look the same, smell the same or even have the same names.

This is no great revelation. Just a common truth that requires common sense to accept. You nod your head, and move on.

But, damn, it was good to know there were Ospreys in a reliable place. Too bad they had to move on.

stop

7 Responses to “Ospreys, red light, green light.”

  1. Bill Seeley says:

    They’re still quite common in the Chesapeake Bay (despite its declining ecosystem), where they build large distinctive nests of sticks and twigs assembled atop abandoned posts out in the water.

  2. Nina H says:

    One place you can be (fairly) certain to see Ospreys is in Laguna Madre, between Port Isabel and South Padre Island, Texas. But loss of habitat IS the biggest cause of population decline, or so the experts tell us.

  3. Ron Heard says:

    Big Yellow Taxi… They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!

  4. Kathleen Dodson says:

    that is sad for certain, it is strange as I see habitat added for Ospreys here and there, guess they figured they had enough habitat…or didnt figure the Osprey’s at all.

  5. Marc D. says:

    Even the face in the mirror, once so familiar, now looks like it belongs to some ancient stranger…

  6. Rob L says:

    … may the TFBW be found in a reliable place for a long time.

  7. Georgy says:

    thanks for the reminder – about constant change
    although, I sure feel sadness in this one . .
    -g-