If you were on the ground and looked up at the osprey in Heather Bautista’s photo, you would think the big bird was carrying a balloon in its talons! And that’s what Bautista thought at first, too.

More than 50 years ago, my Grandpop Kline would frequently take me out onto Rehoboth Bay to fish for a unique species of puffer fish, known colloquially in the area of the bay as blowfish or balloon ...

So what if fish need water to live. For certain pufferfish, flirting on the sand of a moonlit beach is irresistible (in bursts). And that’s not the only odd thing the ocean’s famous self-inflators do.