we are fortunate to live on a bay teeming with wild birds

herons stealthily strut the marsh edges looking for food

spending hours motionless before striking at their prey

swallowing fish whole is their speciality cabaret show

ducks are the little soldiers on the bay parade ground

swimmingly along in formation to the quack of their drill sergeant

geese fly by our home in a perfect V formation

an avian airshow with silent motors and pooping exhausts 

bald eagles nest somewhere nearby

majestically perched in high trees surveying the water

this king of the raptors is a hells angel on wings

nobody messes with this flying Harley Davidson

ospreys build nests on structures in the water

every channel marker adorned with masses of twigs

platforms have been built specially for them

but the one nearest our home is in very bad shape

wrecked in a storm the pole is precariously leaning 

only a single plank remains of the nesting platform

every year a pair of ospreys tries to build here

no pre-purchase surveys in the nesting bird real estate market

a finished osprey nest is probably too heavy for this leaning tower

it would be a tragedy if their completed nest collapsed with young inside

we watch the homebuilding ospreys spending days gathering twigs

gliding back for assembly on that narrow single plank

frequently their building material rolls into the water

they keep coming back and somehow start to weave them together

but then it all slides off the sloping plank when the wind blows strong

they sit on their now bare perch wings folded and dejected

the female saying to her mate “I told you it would not work here”

as he flies off in search of more twigs to prove her wrong

they usually give up after three or four weeks

I wonder where they go after their failed construction 

maybe they give up altogether on homebuilding

perhaps falling into the clutches of slum nest rental landlords

I did think about adding some more planks to the damaged platform

I took a kayak right up close because its very shallow around that pole

but once I saw how badly damaged that pole was

I decided not to intervene

leave it all to nature