The Osprey The clotting mechanism is necessary for survival in animals and humans, because the blood circulation system is pressurized, and a simple cut or wound would prove fatal if the bleeding were not stopped. Hemophilia is a life-threatening disease in which part of the clotting apparatus is crippled. When a cut occurs, molecular signals cause various proteins to activate to create a complex meshwork that entraps the blood cells, forming the initial clot. Clotting involves over 30 distinct individual reactions, each of which is vital to heal a wound and each of which is exceedingly complex. The coordination, order, timing, and rates of action must be exact. Omitting even one of the reactions, inserting an unwanted step, or altering the timing of a step would result in death. This is why the blood clotting system is called “a cascade, a system where one component activates another component” (Alan Gillen, Body by Design, p. 74). * The clot must form quickly. * It must form the full length of the wound with sufficient coverage to stop the bleeding. * It must form only in the precise location of a wound and only enough to close the wound and not close down the blood vessels (otherwise it could block circulation, which is what causes heart attacks and strokes). * The wound must be cleansed of germs and damaged cellular tissues. This is accomplished by an increase in the flow of blood enriched with white blood cells. * The clotting process must not only stop the flow of blood but also develop a new skin cover for permanent healing. The surrounding skin cells increase the rate of reproduction to create a bridge of new skin. * At the precise time when healing is completed, other protein machinery must remove the clot. The intricate process begins with the creation of a protein mesh to close the wound and trap the blood. It is composed of a protein called fibrinogen that is carried in the blood plasma. Another protein, thrombin, slices pieces of fibrinogen to create fibrin and connect them together to form a network. Long threads criss-cross the fibrin to entrap the blood cells. Consider the amazing intelligence and communication that is involved throughout this process at the cellular level. Russell Doolittle has tried to provide an evolutionary scenario for the blood clotting system, but biologist Michael Behe demonstrates that Doolittle’s scenario is simply a “just-so” story. “What he has done is to hypothesize a series of steps in which clotting proteins appear one after another. Yet, as I will show in the next section, the explanation is seriously inadequate because no reasons are given for the appearance of the proteins, no attempt is made to calculate the probability of the proteins’ appearance, and no attempt is made to estimate the new proteins’ properties. ... “The first thing to notice is that no causative factors are cited. Thus tissue factor ‘appears,’ fibrinogen ‘is born,’ antiplasmin ‘arises,’ TPA ‘springs forth,’ a cross-linking protein ‘is unleashed,’ and so forth. What exactly, we might ask, is causing all this springing and unleashing? Doolittle appears to have in mind a step-by-step Darwinian scenario involving the undirected, random duplication and recombination of gene pieces. But consider the enormous amount of luck needed to get the right gene pieces in the right places. ... “The second question to consider is the implicit assumption that a protein made from a duplicated gene would immediately have the new, necessary properties. ... “The third problem in the blood-coagulation scenario is that it avoids the crucial issues of how much, how fast, when, and where. Nothing is said about the amount of clotting material initially available, the strength of the clot that would be formed by a primitive system, the length of time the clot would take to form once a cut occurred, what fluid pressure the clot would resist, how detrimental the formation of inappropriate clots would be, or a hundred other such questions” (Darwin’s Black Box, chapter 4). The blood clotting system cannot have emerged piecemeal. Dean Kenyon, Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University, observes: “In fact, having a primitive, poorly controlled clotting system would probably be more dangerous to an animal, and therefore less advantageous, than having no such system at all! ... It is important to realize that no one has ever offered a credible hypothesis to explain how the blood clotting system could have started and subsequently evolved. ... “Virtually all biochemical systems, large and small, exhibit coherent integration of distinct parts to give a whole entity with a separate purpose. This includes photosynthesis, cell replication, carbohydrate, protein, and lipid metabolism, vision, the immune system, and numerous others. Like a car engine, biological systems can only work after they have been assembled by someone who knows what the final result will be” (Davis and Kenyon, Of Pandas and People, p. 145).

The Osprey

Article and photograph by D.W. Cloud

The osprey is a magnificent fish-eating raptor that is found on every continent except Antarctica. Also called the “fish hawk,” its upper parts are deep brown and its underside is white or white mixed with brown. It’s head is white with dark stripes on the side and black eye patches around its bright yellow eyes. It has a sharply hooked black bill.

A full grown bird is about 24 inches in length with a six-foot wing span and weighs between two to four pounds.

With its amazing eyes, this bird of prey can see a fish swimming underwater from up to 130 feet high. Like the bald eagle, the osprey’s eyes face forward, giving it binocular vision and great depth perception as it searches for prey. Its sharp eyes correct for the refraction caused by the bending of the light in the water.

When it sights a target, it hovers, folds its wings and dives feet first with its talons ready to grab the prey, sighting straight along its talons. Its outer toes are reversible, allowing it to grasp its prey with two talons in front and two behind or three talons in front and one behind. It’s talons have a rubber-like texture, and its feet have backwards-facing scales which act as barbs to help grip the slippery fish. The osprey’s nostrils are closable to keep out water during dives, and it has a membrane that covers the eye and acts as a contact lens when it is under water.

When flying with its catch, it carries the fish head-forward to reduce wind resistance. Typically it captures fish weighing 5-11 ounces, but the catch can weigh up to 2.5 pounds..

After feeding, the osprey sometimes flies low, dragging its feet in the water, apparently to wash them.

The birds usually mate for life, building a large nest that is renovated each season. The male brings the nest-building materials for the female to do the actual construction, and the male brings food to the nest while the female incubates the eggs. A pair of nesting birds and their chicks will eat six pounds of fish per day.

Most ospreys migrate for the winter, with European ospreys wintering in Africa and American and Canadian ospreys wintering in Florida, California, and South America. They average 160 miles per day during migration.