Mike Powell

Most Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge are busily building nests high in the trees, but at least one chose a location that is almost at eye level. The nesting site is on top of a duck blind not far from the shore. The blind is essentially a small wooden shack that sticks out of the water on stilts or pilings.

The nice thing about seeing a subject at eye level is that it gives a very natural perspective that helps you, I believe, to engage more directly with that subject, literally seeing eye-to-eye. That is why it is usually recommended that you bend down to photograph children and pets.

In theory, it is easier to get a shot like this that to shoot upwards into a mass of foliage. In reality, though, I had to find a big enough break in the vegetation and shoot over a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, while moving stealthily so as not to disturb the skittish sitting osprey. I ended up stopping by the spot multiple times during the day before I finally got a shot that I liked. (For what it’s worth, I am not sure what the object in the foreground is—at first I thought it was a partially eaten fish, but now I don’t think that is the case. Any ideas?

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Like many other places, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge has some raised platforms on which ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) build nests each year. Sometimes violent winter weather destroys much of a previous year’s nest, but quite often the nest survives pretty much intact and all that is required is some spring cleaning and minor renovation.

The latter seemed to be the case with one of the osprey nests that I spotted this past Monday. An osprey was in the nest and appeared to be moving around some of the branches. In the first shot you can see some of the man-made elements of the platform on which the nest is constructed and get a sense of the relative size of the nest. I couldn’t get a really good look at precisely was it doing, though, because the nest was high in the air on a tall post, as you can see in the second photo below.

As I was watching the osprey, a bald eagle flew by and seemed to startle the osprey. The final shot captured the osprey just after it took off from the nest and really emphasized the massive wingspan of the osprey.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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