Young Osprey

Myriam (Myr's Bytes)

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Two young ospreys fledged from the Bowmont Park nest this year. The starkness of the bare branch against the open sky in this photo compelled me to convert it to black and white. But I wanted to keep the orange eye. Young ospreys have orange eyes whereas adults have light lime-greenish yellow eyes. Also, the white scalloping on the ends of juvenal wing feathers is not seen in adults, whose feathers are entirely dark brown.

Scientific name: Pandion haliaetus
Pandion was a mythical king of Athens and haliaetus comes from two Greek words which mean sea eagle (wikipedia)

P.S. Because the branches form a “K”, I tried to think of a word that started with “K” and had something to do with ospreys while editing the photograph. But nothing came up. When Michael (Richards) of A Certain Line commented that he found the image powerful, the “K” word appeared instantly. King of course! The young osprey also happens to be perched in the tree near his (her?) nest where one of his parents would perch when not fishing or sitting on the nest. Since female ospreys spend a lot more time on the nest than males, the usual perched osprey would have been papa osprey. So, a fun title for the photo could be “The prince on the king’s throne” (but the prince may be a princess).

27 Comments

    1. Thanks so much for your lovely compliment, Deborah :-). I did think about printing it. I haven’t printed any of the photos I have taken yet. I’m curious to see how the image resolution looks in print. Also, I’m curious to see how my contrast settings look – similar to my computer screen or darker or lighter.

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      1. My images were too dark which I hear is normal due to our computer screens. I brightened my screen a bit, and brighten my images more for printing and it’s working. I do let the lab make color and exposure adjustments if needed so I don’t really know if they have to do much or not. 🙂 Try printing! I bet you’ll be amazed when you get a print back you really like. 🙂

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  5. I love ospreys! Whenever that stupid question pops up of “if you had to be a bird, which would you be?” I’d say “osprey.” Who wouldn’t want to be a powerful flyer with a fish diet? 😀

    I love the way you’ve transformed the photo! You could sell that as a print, it is so beautiful!

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    1. Thanks so much for your lovely compliment, Teresa :-). You did mention to me a while back that if you were a bird, you would be an osprey. Some time later, I came across a video of an osprey fishing (BBC Scotland, narrated by Ewan McGregor) which totally made me want to be an osprey too. The power, grace and fluidity of those wings!

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  8. I agree with Michael. This is truly powerful photo. Such a masterpiece! Oh, and the video you added here. I remember the feeling when I first saw it (thanks to you). Wonderful! These birds are magnificent! 🙂

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  9. What an exciting find! I haven’t seen these birds, although I understand there is an active nest near Chicago (!). I love your photo. My first thought was to wonder whether you’d drawn this. I hope you do!

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    1. Thanks for your lovely comment, Melissa :-). I’ve been too busy to draw lately but maybe one of these days I will do some quick drawings for fun. I have been doing quick fish drawings for my zoology class! There are a few osprey nests along the river here. I guess the fishing is good. It is always a treat to watch them fly.

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