Well, NOW I know...

[sm4him]

...why coastalconn is so enamored of his Ospreys.

What little time I've had to shoot lately has been largely unfruitful--some mediocre to okay stuff, but just the same old, same old. Songbirds mostly.

I took Thursday and Friday off and explored two wildlife refuges that I hadn't ever been to; both are supposed to be great birding spots. Thursday was a beautiful day and I had a great time--saw a zillion purple martins and a hawk of some sort, along with lots of ducks and such; haven't processed those pictures yet, so we'll see what I get out of them. I'll definitely be back to that spot--it's less than an hour from me.

Friday, I went to a different refuge, about 70 minutes from me. When I got there, it looked flat, dry and...uninteresting. But I started to walk, and before I even got completely out of sight of the car, I saw an Osprey!

I have never seen one in Tennessee before; or indeed, anywhere except Florida many years ago. Actually, I take that back--I'd seen one the day before, at the OTHER refuge, but I didn't even KNOW that's what it was until I got home and looked at pictures. It was flying way up high, near some vultures, and I kinda thought maybe it was a hawk.

Anyway: I had an AWESOME day watching a pair of nesting Ospreys! For the full story, read my blog post.

Here's some of my favorite photos from the day--these are definitely NOT the quality of Kris' photos, but you gotta remember two very important things:
--I only have a 70-300 (well, I do have a 1.4xTC too, but it was too cloudy to use it)
--I don't have Kris' skills.

The rest of the photos I processed are on my Flickr page.

This is kinda pic heavy; sorry, but I got carried away. :lmao:

1.


2.


3.


4.


5. Osprey vs. Black Vulture mid-air combat. I like this one because it shows how much longer the Osprey's wingspan is.


6.


7. Probably my favorite from the day:



Comments, C&C, general banter appreciated, as always!

 

[SCraig]

Very nice! Now it's me saying I've never seen any around Tennessee

 

[oldhippy]

Your skills are improving. Really nice set

 

[MSnowy]

Nice set.

 

[WesternGuy]

Sharon, great images. I like the last one the best of the lot. Number 5 of the two birds is also a good one. Do you have any idea what the bird is carrying in the first one - nesting materials?

WesternGuy

 

[sleist]

#7 looks awesome. I wish these were larger. Hard to get a good look at such small versions.

Love the wings on 3 too.

 

[matthewo]

I second that,^^^ I think #7 might look a little better with more room in front of the bird

 

[sm4him]

Very nice! Now it's me saying I've never seen any around Tennessee

It had really never even occurred to me that there WERE Ospreys in TN. I'm having fun hunting all these different birds that I never paid attention to before!

 

[SCraig]

Very nice! Now it's me saying I've never seen any around Tennessee

It had really never even occurred to me that there WERE Ospreys in TN. I'm having fun hunting all these different birds that I never paid attention to before!

Where did you find it? I guess I'm the same way, I just never thought there was any reason for them to be around here.

 

[sm4him]

Your skills are improving. Really nice set

Nice set.

Sharon, great images. I like the last one the best of the lot. Number 5 of the two birds is also a good one. Do you have any idea what the bird is carrying in the first one - nesting materials?

WesternGuy

Thank you all!

Western Guy, yes, it's some kind of nesting material, but it wasn't natural, I don't think. There were some pieces of plastic bag woven into their nest that would whip around in the wind every now and then. This almost looked like some kind of old roofing material, but I'm not sure.

What was funny is that one of the pictures (on flickr, didn't post it here) that looks much like the one above is actually the OTHER Osprey carrying the same material AWAY from the nest! It kept kind of shaking its leg, so I think it actually got the material stuck in its talon as it took off and couldn't get it off. Either that, or the male brought it in, and after he left, the female carted it off, thinking "I don't know why he brings this JUNK into the nest--it's ugly!" :lmao:

 

[sm4him]

#7 looks awesome. I wish these were larger. Hard to get a good look at such small versions.

Love the wings on 3 too.

I second that,^^^ I think #7 might look a little better with more room in front of the bird

Thanks, both of you. I might try to reprocess #7 and post a version with more room in the front--I'm pretty sure I had room to play with.

The size thing brings up a good point. I hate posting small images on TPF, but since I post so much of my stuff on flickr and/or FB, I tend to make them small, low-res files and maybe I'm just lazy, but I hate to have to save them a lot of different ways.

I tend to save the original as a fairly decent size file and 300 ppi resolution, in case I want to print them. Then I save a web version which is usually somewhere around 5x7 inches, 72ppi.

What would you suggest--should I just upload the larger files directly on TPF? Host larger files somewhere else--upload larger files to flickr?

 

[sm4him]

Very nice! Now it's me saying I've never seen any around Tennessee

It had really never even occurred to me that there WERE Ospreys in TN. I'm having fun hunting all these different birds that I never paid attention to before!

Where did you find it? I guess I'm the same way, I just never thought there was any reason for them to be around here.

These were at Rankin Bottoms refuge, which is off I-81, JUST past the split with I-40, headed up toward Bristol. You get off at the first exit after the split, then it's probably another 30 minutes beyond that.
The one I saw further off in the distance was at Kyker Bottoms, which is south, down 411--but not nearly as far south as the Hiwassee Refuge.

What I've been doing is using the TWRA Watchable Wildlife site, then checking Ebird for a list of birds spotted in each place. Places with a large variety of different birds, or places with a decent population of particularly intriguing birds get "top billing" in my "places to investigate" list.

I think the TWRA site or the Ebird site said that there are three known Osprey nests at Rankin Bottoms, but I never imagined I'd see one of them before I was even out of sight of my car!

 

[SCraig]

Thanks, both of you. I might try to reprocess #7 and post a version with more room in the front--I'm pretty sure I had room to play with.

The size thing brings up a good point. I hate posting small images on TPF, but since I post so much of my stuff on flickr and/or FB, I tend to make them small, low-res files and maybe I'm just lazy, but I hate to have to save them a lot of different ways.

I tend to save the original as a fairly decent size file and 300 ppi resolution, in case I want to print them. Then I save a web version which is usually somewhere around 5x7 inches, 72ppi.

What would you suggest--should I just upload the larger files directly on TPF? Host larger files somewhere else--upload larger files to flickr?

I never put large images on a web site. All of the images on my web site use 150x100 thumbnails and clicking one of them only opens an 800x533 image.

I keep an untouched copy of my original, no editing whatsoever. If I just make minor changes to an image all I save that to is a JPEG. If I make significant changes to an image I save it as an edited NEF but still keep the original. I keep everything in DVD-sized directories on my computer, and when there is enough to fill a DVD I write two copies, one for here and one I keep at my office.

These were at Rankin Bottoms refuge, which is off I-81, JUST past the split with I-40, headed up toward Bristol. You get off at the first exit after the split, then it's probably another 30 minutes beyond that.
The one I saw further off in the distance was at Kyker Bottoms, which is south, down 411--but not nearly as far south as the Hiwassee Refuge.

What I've been doing is using the TWRA Watchable Wildlife site, then checking Ebird for a list of birds spotted in each place. Places with a large variety of different birds, or places with a decent population of particularly intriguing birds get "top billing" in my "places to investigate" list.

I think the TWRA site or the Ebird site said that there are three known Osprey nests at Rankin Bottoms, but I never imagined I'd see one of them before I was even out of sight of my car!

I use the TWRA site as well. It's a great resource for finding birds in Tennessee. I just wish they would publish the chances of seeing a specific bird at one of the areas. For example they list Canvasback ducks on Radnor Lake during the winter, and in the hundreds of times I've been to Radnor Lake I've never seen one there.

 

[sm4him]

Thanks, both of you. I might try to reprocess #7 and post a version with more room in the front--I'm pretty sure I had room to play with.

The size thing brings up a good point. I hate posting small images on TPF, but since I post so much of my stuff on flickr and/or FB, I tend to make them small, low-res files and maybe I'm just lazy, but I hate to have to save them a lot of different ways.

I tend to save the original as a fairly decent size file and 300 ppi resolution, in case I want to print them. Then I save a web version which is usually somewhere around 5x7 inches, 72ppi.

What would you suggest--should I just upload the larger files directly on TPF? Host larger files somewhere else--upload larger files to flickr?

I never put large images on a web site. All of the images on my web site use 150x100 thumbnails and clicking one of them only opens an 800x533 image.

I keep an untouched copy of my original, no editing whatsoever. If I just make minor changes to an image all I save that to is a JPEG. If I make significant changes to an image I save it as an edited NEF but still keep the original. I keep everything in DVD-sized directories on my computer, and when there is enough to fill a DVD I write two copies, one for here and one I keep at my office.

These were at Rankin Bottoms refuge, which is off I-81, JUST past the split with I-40, headed up toward Bristol. You get off at the first exit after the split, then it's probably another 30 minutes beyond that.
The one I saw further off in the distance was at Kyker Bottoms, which is south, down 411--but not nearly as far south as the Hiwassee Refuge.

What I've been doing is using the TWRA Watchable Wildlife site, then checking Ebird for a list of birds spotted in each place. Places with a large variety of different birds, or places with a decent population of particularly intriguing birds get "top billing" in my "places to investigate" list.

I think the TWRA site or the Ebird site said that there are three known Osprey nests at Rankin Bottoms, but I never imagined I'd see one of them before I was even out of sight of my car!

I use the TWRA site as well. It's a great resource for finding birds in Tennessee. I just wish they would publish the chances of seeing a specific bird at one of the areas. For example they list Canvasback ducks on Radnor Lake during the winter, and in the hundreds of times I've been to Radnor Lake I've never seen one there.

Yeah, I do always work on a copy, not the original. So I actually end up with three versions--the original file, the edited full version and the edited web version (plus backups of each). That's a good idea about the DVD-sized directories and off-site backup. I generally just make a backup onto my external drive, and then a couple of times a month, make a second backup to a different drive. My sister and I *used* to keep backup copies of each other's files at our homes, but we haven't updated those in quite a while; really need to do that.

 

[coastalconn]

Great Job Sharon! I was wondering where you have been. They are amazing birds aren't they? I'm headed out to shoot some now.