Osprey #1

Yesterday CDS and I went up to Damariscotta Mills in Maine to see the Osprey catching alewives during their spawning run up the fish ladder to Damariscotta Lake. It was quite a sight - the alewives pack into a narrow channel to get upstream, and at low tide you could just about walk on them. The gulls, cormorants, osprey and eagles line up for the buffet line.

At one point we had 7 osprey overhead. We also saw 2 bald eagles, a great blue heron, and countless gulls and cormorants.

It was quite a day.

Here's my favorite so far:

God and I thought the Eagle was great,, this one is,,,,,,,,,,,,, well what can I say.... Wow.

JZ

wooow
That's a great picture of a great looking bird.
No further coments necessary.

I gotta get out of here.... Birds like that don't come anywhere near my neck of the woods. I guess I have to go to them.

Scott this is perfect!

The trip was a blast

I met Scott north of boston and we drove up together amidst lots of caffeine and conversation in his comfy Crown Vic.

Maine was beautifull.. the coast.. the rivers.. the weather was nothing short of perfect.

We actually met up wih two other "forum" people.. but not from this forum.. Nick and Dirk and Dirk's quintessential photographers dream girlfreind (wife?)

She stayed all 6 hours or so without a camera or a complaint and was in fact instrumental for all of us in getting some of the best shots.. as with our one eye constantly glued to the feild of view of our respective telephoto lenses.. she was the perfect spotter.. even going so far as to drop the "to the left" stuff in favor of the more specific .. "11:00 o-clock!! Oprey diving!!! " 8) 8) .... I don't think we ever got her name... ?

The evening was topped of with a storm cloud encroaching sunset.. and a stop at famous "Red's" lobster stand for Lobster rolls and clams just before the downpour started!

What a blast.. can't wait to upload some pics too

Wow!

Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my face and keyboard.

Killer shots! This has got to be the start of a book, right?

ROFL. It was pretty exciting - no time to drool. I ended up shooting well over 500 shots - when the osprey were slow the gulls and cormorants had a field day. Then the osprey would come back and it was 10 minutes of pure exhilaration. When there were a number of osprey up there it was stressful - who to pick, who to shoot? Luckily Dirk's SO kept on top of things for us. But it got truly hectic when we had 5 osprey up and she's yelling "Eagles! 2 o'clock!" What the hell do you do then?

The cormorants were kinda cool. There was a bunch of them in a small pond of sorts on one side of the bridge leading to the fish ladder. One would dive on the other side of the bridge, swim 60 or 80 feet under water and come up with a fish on our side of the bridge. The other cormorants and gulls would go crazy trying to steal the fish. So there was plenty to shoot.

We spent a full 6 hours there, and 80-90% of the time at least one osprey was up. The last two hours was close to low tide, and you had a shot at any single moment in time. At times like that the 100-400 doesn't weigh a thing.

Scottes,
I was looking at the pics on the site, the large and I'm impressed! Are these originally RAW or jpegs? I see that you are in the 4800s and 4900s on this shoot. It is amazing having gone digital. Just think how much it would be if you were shooting 35mm. Film what?

Film? ? ? Heck, no. I took almost 600 pictures on Saturday. What's 17 rolls times $12 a roll? Ouch!


They were originally RAW - I always shoot RAW. Because as soon as I start takings JPG I'll mess up the shot that would win me some grand national prize or something.

that's a wonderful shot

thanks for posting the link to your gallery. I love the shot of the osprey with the fish.....wondering if you had to shoot continuous to get it .

C

I definitely spent a lot of time on continuous when they were diving - that's a 2 second rush where you just track and hold the button down! But a few of the fish ones were single shots - trying to line up a shot with *something* in the background.

Fantastic shot, great capture