When you cannot get close enough to an osprey to see its eye color (red/orange fledgling & yellow adult), especially in flight, and you want to know is it an adult or a fledgling. Take a look at the back of the bird! Fledgling has white points at the end of all of its feathers! Adult has beautiful brown flight feathers. 2 photos (adult left, fledgling right) so you can see the difference! Moncure, July 2025 & August 2014
My first sighting of one of this year’s fledgling ospreys! She is beautiful and her dark many layered necklace says I am female.
Jordan Lake Dam and Tailrace Area are Open! Please be very careful as the Haw River is flowing very fast and forceful. I would avoid going on the riprap rocks! A slip could be dangerous. I made the clip this morning and it has the Haw River, ospreys and great blue herons fishing.
Ospreys don’t have roofs over their nests, so no shade. Excessive heat is dangerous to all animals. Osprey parents, especially mom, give up their own comfort in order to actually make shade for their chicks. The parent will stand with wings outspread for incredibly long minutes to make sure their chicks are cool. Here are three examples of mom osprey as she becomes a life sustaining shade.
Doc Ellen has been profiled by writer Kimberly Gentry in Suburban Living serving Fuquay Varina. If you have a few minutes, please sit for a moment or two and read why Jordan Lake is now central to her journey.
https://fuquay-varina.suburbanlivingmag.com/doc-ellen-sees-life-through-a-special-lens/
Ospreys are one of the most daring fishers on the lake. This mama osprey actually dove in between the two walls of the dam’s tailrace to pick up a fish for her breakfast. I always catch my breath and hold it when I watch an osprey do this daring dive! I hope you enjoy the sequence. Jordan Lake, Moncure, NC, March, 2025
doc ellen's journey 