I had leaned way back in my chair to try to photograph a tiny brown-headed nuthatch.
Don’t you know, into my viewfinder came this male fledgling osprey.
He was so close that I didn’t get all of his wings.
The smudge to the right of the bird is the tree that I was leaning around.
The youngster bounced to a landing, balanced for a moment and then left to look for fish.
Thought y’all might enjoy the other end of the fledgling osprey’s flight.
After being puzzled by watching us watching her,
the youngster took off to practice her new skills.
The leap into the open space surrounding the nest is one step.
The next is to safely stick a landing.
This female osprey fledgling seemed as intent on watching my friends and I
as she was in making sure her feet were going to meet the branch at the right angle.
And, yes, she made a great landing!
Birds have a built-in lens protector that flicks across their eyes.
This third eyelid is called a nictitating membrane.
It allows the bird to still see while its eyes have extra protection.
You can see the translucency as the nictitating membrane slides across the osprey’s eye.
Quizzical was intently watching his mom Kate.
I heard an osprey scream the “eagle alert”.
I looked across the cove to see a male osprey, flying with a fish in his talons.
Then I saw Kate heading across the cove, I thought to take the fish from the osprey.
No, Kate had other thoughts in mind.
As she dove towards the osprey nest, the female osprey came up out of the nest and dove at Kate.
To no avail. Kate hurtled past both ospreys and into the trees where the nest was, hidden from my sight.
Both ospreys circled a couple of times. The female eventually headed further up the cove.
The male osprey, still carrying his fish, followed his mate.
Some 4 minutes later Kate reappeared. Beak all wet and shiny. She had feasted on the osprey eggs.
out of the shadows below the causeway the osprey appeared, fish dangling from his talons
doc ellen's journey 