Watching Ospreys Build A Nest!

Osprey returning to nest, Colonial National Historical Parkway, Virginia (click to enlarge)

Several times a year, a couple of buddies, who are both primarily wildlife and bird photographers and I get together in Williamsburg, VA for breakfast.  Afterward, on occasion, we will drive around the area and look for images.  Last Friday was one of those days.

On this occasion, we drove over to the Colonial National Historical Parkway.  We easily found several osprey nests under construction.  Additionally, we know the whereabouts of several bald eagle nests.  At one osprey nest, we parked, got out with our gear and watched the ospreys come and go from the nest, bringing back twigs most of the time.

Here are a few of the images I made from that day.  All images were made with the Olympus OM-D E-M1, Olympus 4/3 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens equipped with the Olympus MMF-2 4/3 to M4/3 adapter and Olympus TC-14 1.4X tele-converter.  The images are not cropped.  The focal lengths used ranged from 400 to 560mm ~e.

As I was photographing, I heard what I thought was a bald eagle making a lot of noise behind me in a line of trees. I turned around and walked across the road to see what was making all the racket. Turns out is was another couple of ospreys. One osprey was precariously perched on the very top of a large dead tree when another came in to attack. Here are some of the images from that encounter.  I don't know the reason why the second osprey drove the first away.  I don't believe there is a nest nearby.

It is always interesting to me to watch and learn more about the fauna and flora around me. This planet is so diverse in its abundance of beautiful plants and animals.  We are truly fortunate.

The E-M1 along with the 50-200 native 4/3 lens performed flawlessly and I couldn't be more pleased with the images.  In case you are wondering, I tried to use a shutter speed to leave a little movement in the flying hawks.  I tried to avoid the example of a race car that is whizzing by but stopped fully in its tracks by a very high shutter speed making it look like a static display.  I wanted to portray some of the movement as a bit of blur instead of the osprey appearing as though it was hanging from a string in a museum display.  In some images I succeeded and others not.  

But, we had fun and enjoyed the camaraderie and the photography as well.


Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.

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