Osprey Bones

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) are fish-eating birds of prey that are found on every continent except Antarctica. They are distinct in appearance, with white feathers on the majority of their body and darker feathers that cover their wings and form a mask around their eyes. Ospreys also have a hooked beak and sharp talons that allow them to easily swoop down and catch fish.

Thus far, only a few osprey bones have been found at Jamestown in a context associated with the earliest years of the colony, Pit 9. The bones, a lower leg bone called a tarsometatarsus and several talon bones, do not have evidence of butchery. This does not, however, mean that ospreys weren’t a food source during the colony’s periods of dietary stress — it just means that we can’t identify cut marks on these specific bones. Within various Indigenous tribes, ospreys can represent protection or guidance, so it is also possible an osprey was captured by the colonists to use during interactions with the Native Virginians. John Smith identified ospreys by name and identified their main food source, writing, “Hawks there be of diverse sorts, as our Falconers called them: Sparrow-hawks, Lanarets [peregrine falcons], Goshawks, Falcons and Ospreyes, but they all prey most upon fish.”

As ospreys are found world-wide, they have been depicted cross-culturally in many different art forms, with the bird appearing in Chinese folk poems, Shakespearean plays, and Roman writings. John James Audubon painted the osprey, or fish hawk, as his 81st plate in his 1838 book The Birds of America, which sought to display the variety of birds found in the United States. Ospreys are also well represented icons for various heraldries and sports teams, with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks taking their name from another term for ospreys. On Jamestown Island, ospreys can still be spotted catching fish over the James River.

related images