Osprey
- Family
- Pandionidae
Where and when to see the Osprey
DraftMostly in Quintana Roo
It lives on coasts, lagoons, estuaries and mangroves, always near water with fish. Look for it perched on dead trees, posts or towers by the water, or flying along the shore; in winter more arrive from the north.
Where it’s reported most
- Puerto AventurasPlaya del Carmen, Quintana Roo
- Kabah Ecological ParkBenito Juárez, Quintana Roo
- HolboxLázaro Cárdenas, Quintana Roo
- Punta Sur, CozumelCozumel, Quintana Roo
When
All year · most reports Oct–Mar
Most reports from October to March.
Reports relative to effort
- January: 94%
- February: 93%
- March: 85%
- April: 62%
- May: 53%
- June: 51%
- July: 58%
- August: 62%
- September: 63%
- October: 94%
- November: 97%
- December: 100%
Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2026 · Base map: Natural Earth
Fishes the lagoons, bays and open coast, hovering before plunging feet first. Northern birds winter here alongside a local population that nests on the coast.
- Identification
- A large, long-winged raptor, dark brown above and bright white below, with a white head crossed by a dark stripe through the yellow eye. In flight its long, narrow wings bend at the wrist, where it shows a dark patch; at a distance it looks more like a big gull than a hawk. Resident Caribbean birds have paler heads and a fainter stripe.
- Voice
- High, whistled chirps: a slow series in flight and, near the nest, a run of calls that rises and falls like a whistling kettle.
What the photo doesn’t show
DraftA streamlined catch
Watch one leave the water with a catch: once airborne, it shifts its grip so the fish faces forward, one foot in front of the other, like a torpedo. Spiny foot pads and an outer toe that swivels backwards help it hold slippery prey. 1,2
The ones that stay
Not every Osprey here is a visitor. The Caribbean subspecies, ridgwayi, does not migrate and nests in small numbers along the coasts of the Yucatán Peninsula and Belize. It breeds in winter: most pairs lay in November and December, and the young leave the nest in February and March. 2,3,4
A creature of habit
Northern Ospreys that winter in the tropics are creatures of habit. Satellite-tagged adults stayed about five months, rarely moved more than 5 km from their chosen roosts and went back to the same sites year after year. One you find this winter may well be there next winter. 5,6
Back from DDT
Ospreys crashed between the 1950s and 1970s, when DDT thinned their eggshells: about 90% of the pairs between New York and Boston disappeared. After the pesticide was banned they recovered, helped by nest platforms. 7,8
Sources
- All About Birds (Cornell Lab): Osprey (opens in a new tab)
- Animal Diversity Web: Pandion haliaetus (opens in a new tab)
- Wiley et al. 2014, Journal of Raptor Research 48(4): 396 (opens in a new tab)
- Wikipedia: Osprey (opens in a new tab)
- Washburn et al. 2014, Journal of Raptor Research 48(4): 325 (opens in a new tab)
- Martell et al. 2001, The Condor 103(4): 715 (opens in a new tab)
- All About Birds (Cornell Lab): Osprey life history (opens in a new tab)
- Birds of the World (Cornell Lab): Osprey (opens in a new tab)
- IUCN Red List category, via GBIF: Pandion haliaetus (opens in a new tab)
- BirdLife International, Data Zone: Osprey (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 11,862 records from 2015–2026 from eBird, iNaturalist, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.
Tell us where, or ask how to find one.
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