Nature is not bucolic. Animals attack one another with tooth, claw, and bill. Other species are seen as either food or competitor — in either case they must be attacked. I have watched animals assault prey. I have seen eagles harass ospreys in an attempt to steal their fish. I have seen ospreys attack herons (who knows why?). Spiders devoir flies. Bears and birds prey on fish. Everything captures and eats those tasty voles. It is just a matter of eat or be eaten. There is nothing personal here, folks: you are merely food.
While I have watched ospreys fight over access to a nest site early in the season, I had not previously seen them fight over a fish. But, that is what two of them were doing on this occasion.
A female osprey flies in with her partially eaten fish.
She lands on a branch to eat it further, but is watched by another osprey that covets the fish.
The chase begins. This is only one scene from a vigorous back and forth between the two of them.
In the end she triumphs and settles down to consume her fish.
I hope she didn’t get indigestion after all that fighting.
Factious, or perhaps better, fractious; either way, the chain of being is not disturbed even if our age claims such notions have been discarded. Frogs eat butterflies. Snakes eat frogs. Hogs eat snakes. Men eat hogs.