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Cookie came along on a fishing trip this past week. Had a tough time composing images as we drifted along in a moving boat, but did score a fair osprey shot. Sadly, most of the fish was gone except for the tail.

Canon EOS 50D with a Canon 100-400 lens at 400 mm, ISO 320, F 5.6 at 1/1600 sec.

No cropping or post processing. Just downsized.

I put up a used 45' power line pole about 50 yards from my back porch. With the help of the power company I had a nesting platform built on top and we have these big beautiful birds living in our back yard every day. Quite often a third male shows up and the aerial display of them trying to run ( fly) one another off is pretty impressive.

That is a female in the photo by the way. Just incase there are folks that cannot tell male from female. They will mate for life, and migrate pretty far south every fall. As far south as South America and Panama

As it turned out, this was one of those be careful what you ask for situations. They begin their calling and screeching at sunrise every morning. I might as well have stuck a rooster up there!

JJHACK:

Comments always welcome, and they certainly have some interesting habits and a unique niche in the world. I still marvel that they can spot prey even when the winds have the water's surface whipped to a froth. They've put on an amazing recovery in our region, with nests every mile or so along many of our major water ways. They were quite rare about 25 years ago. Not many though out here in arid southeast Oregon.

As to photography - I've been wondering if one could stake out a tethered white fish (non game) near the water's surface with some light leader and lure one out of the sky for some close up images from a blind. They hit the water like a bowling ball when doing a dive, but chasing a bird in flight with auto focus systems and anything in the back ground is near impossible. One could sit up manually though for a fixed target and maybe score some action images that way.

Cookie done good again!