After 25 Years, David Gessner Returns to 'Return of the Osprey'

In the 25th anniversary edition of Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder, New York Times bestselling author David Gessner invites readers into the world of the magnificent creature known as the osprey. Once endangered due to the use of the pesticide DDT, ospreys have made a strong return to their former habitats, including Cape Cod, where Gessner conducted his observations and research. Initially, what drew him to these birds of prey were their athleticism, and, surprisingly, their messy habits. Gessner noted that their nests would often be filled with various items such as boat rope, tinsel, and fishing line. Additionally, they possess other distinctive features that distinguish them from raptors. He remarked, “They’re the only raptor that gets it meal… living solely by diving for fish… They’ve got a black, bandit mask… so they can stare down from fifty feet up and look into the water, and then they go flying at forty miles an hour, headfirst… and at the last second they kick a wheelie and clutching fish, and that’s how they make their living and to me that was a large part of the appeal was the athleticism of the bird.”

While ospreys have made a notable comeback, they now face a new challenge – the overfishing of menhaden, which are the fish that ospreys most depend on. As Gessner explains, “What that has led to in the Chesapeake Bay is ospreys starving, the osprey numbers going back to the battle days of DDT, and plummeting numbers…the good news is that people are pissed off, and people are fighting back against this and trying to outlaw that fishing in Maryland.” And after all the research that Gessner has gathered on this fascinating animal, what is his key takeaway? “This book for me was about how ospreys, which I learned about, changed my life. I mean, they changed my life by making me a more of an observer, making me being able to watch and notice, but also, like, thinking about home…”