These are wild osprey. Each year, there are osprey that try to make a nest on the pilings right next to the Jamestown/Scotland ferry. Each year, they're smart enough to give up on the nest -- until this year!
To get a shot of the osprey is a little challenging. Even though they're quite close to the ferry, you have an incredibly small window of time to get the shot. If your car is one of the first cars on, you can have up to 10 minutes to get a shot, otherwise it's just a couple of minutes. During this time, you have to hope that the osprey are in the right positions in the nest, because you really can't change your angle very much. Then you have to ride the ferry across the river, turn around and come back. It's about a hour of time to get about 12 minutes of shooting.
When they were first nesting, the osprey would take off every time the ferry would dock (once every half hour.) Once the chicks hatched, the mother started spreading her wings like this to look more frightening to scare off the ferry whenever it docked.
Here's another shot from 3 weeks later.
Here's an earlier shot. I kept hoping that I could get the perfect national geographic shot of the father bringing a fish. I haven't quite made it yet.
I actually thought I might get the shot the last time I was out. We actually were on board 15 minutes before we left dock. And during that time, the osprey tried fishing 3 different times, but was unable to catch anything. I was awesome to watch, however.
Statistics
Place: 35 out of 341 Avg (all users): 6.3876 Avg (commenters): 8.2000 Avg (participants): 6.3404 Avg (non-participants): 6.5143 Views since voting: 1555 Views during voting: 241 Votes: 129 Comments: 7 Favorites: 2 (view)
Wonderful Osprey photo. See these all along the river here in Florida. Never can get a photo like this from my perspective. Composition fits this scene perfectly.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
