Life Bird #150: The Elusive Osprey

It pays to take your camera along when making a pit stop.

Hmm... That didn't sound quite like I meant it, but I stand by the statement. There have been numerous occasions when I've been out birding, either by foot or in my truck, and emerged from a rest stop or port-o-potty to find birds that I've been watching for (or didn't even know to expect) perched outside just waiting for me. It's as if they've been carefully avoiding me as I moved through the area, but when I disappear for a few moments they have to stop by to see where I've gone.

Such was the case last week as I visited the Baytown Nature Center. I had one primary goal, one target bird that had eluded me both in the local coastal sanctuaries and in last summer's trip to Colorado — the Osprey.

I had tried all the suggested locales in the park to no avail, and after two hours of driving, walking and freezing I was about to give up on finding any ospreys. No sightings at the (completely deserted) Duck Pond or the Brownwood Marsh Pavilion, nothing moving on the promisingly-named Osprey Island, nary a sign of any perched in the trees by the Y-intersection. Finally I was running out of time and decided to head once more down the thin peninsula to San Jacinto Point for a final quick check for waders and cormorants near the fishing piers. I took my camera and binoculars and walked over to the little birders' room.

When I emerged from the cramped, plastic cave — Why are those things never tall enough for a person to stand up straight, anyway? — there he was, not thirty yards away, sitting primly atop a wooden piling near the water's edge.


Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
I moved slowly to a nearby park bench and sat, taking pictures, until this magnificent creature lifted suddenly into the air and headed across the bay. I followed his flight with my binoculars, but within seconds he was only a dark spot against the hazy background of the opposite shore.


Minutes later I found him again, wheeling back towards me with a trophy clutched tightly in his talons, the triumphant fisher returning with his lunch.




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I stayed in my spot as he returned to his former perch, taking a few more snapshots. But since he seemed somewhat reluctant to begin eating his catch with me in such close proximity, I decided to ease myself up and move on.




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More to come from last week's trip to Baytown...


For more great bird photos from around the world, check out Bird Photography Weekly #78.