Last week was a great week to go out and shoot. I shot at five different locations and on two of the outings, I saw things I have never seen before. Generally when I go out to shoot, as I wander around a location, different things catch my eye, I don’t normally go with a single shot or wish list. But Sunday, going to the beach late in the afternoon, upon arrival around 4pm, there was on Osprey in a nest, within a hundred yards of the parking lot.
I grabbed a few shots and she flew off so I wandered around to the west side of the tree as from this location, the osprey would be facing into the setting sun and if lucky enough, she would land and take off in the same direction due to the wind. Of course this is where patience comes in, which I normally lack. But for some reason, I decided that everything was as I would want it, I just needed to wait for something to happen.
Within a few minutes (4:17pm) she returned to the tree.
Then (4:26pm) she decided to move from the end of the branch into the nest.
So far, this was nice for me as I had actually put myself in a good place to take these shots but I have had this opportunity in the past, so my first reaction was, I got what I set up for, so should I move onto the beach and see what I might find there or stay. But I wanted to stay committed to getting something I had not yet captured.
Well, just a few minutes later (4:30pm), her suitor shows up with a small gift.
After accepting the small gift, she leaves rather quickly.
I guess not wanting to be left alone, he too departs.
Well not sure why, but seeing that he left, she actually just made a large loop and returned to her original branch with gift in hand.
Well her mate returns (4:35pm) and for the first time ever, I was able to capture two osprey mating.
The following slideshow contains just over 100 images, each one cycling at one second).
This was truly an experience to observe this in the wild. And really, like many of the photos that I capture, this occurred within about 100 yards of the parking lot and there was no one taking notice.
I am glad that I captured it (although with the number of photos taken, video may have been easier) as it was after reviewing on the larger screen at home, that I noticed two things I did not see at the time: It was interesting how he curled his talons and rested on his legs and the other items was through all of this, she did not drop her gift.
Now in this particular case, my patience paid off. When going out to shoot, you never know what you may find and if you do find something, how long do you wait until you decide to move on. I always feel that the best thing is going to happen as soon as I leave. Well I was able to capture the above in a total of about 30 minutes. But then I continued to stay for an additional hour when Mike and Michele returned from the beach shooting to find me in the same spot from two hours prior. As luck would have it for them, within a few minutes (5:47pm), the suitor returned for another short visit when the lighting was somewhat more romantic.
Great time and location, thank you Mike for continuing to push us to go out and shoot.