By the time you read this column, I will already be home from a two-week photo expedition to Cape Cod. Given the reality of this time we live in, I was hyper careful about avoiding crowds, but the other reality of bird watching is the simple fact that no one is awake at 5 a.m. and the beaches and salt marsh areas that I was interested in were completely devoid of humans. Early-morning birding, it seems, is a perfect social distancing activity; always was and always will be.
The last time I spent two weeks at the ocean was in 2014, when I spent a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. I took thousands of photographs of many different species, but the one that made the most lasting mark on me was the osprey. Time and time again, I was stymied by this gorgeous fish eagle. It would appear when I didn’t have my camera, it was absent when I was prepared and I eventually declared the osprey (the entire species) to be my personal arch nemesis.
Fast forward to 2020, and things had definitely improved. I found myself at the Waquiot Bay Estuarine Research Area, in the town of Mashpee, and I just stumbled into a photographer’s dream scenario. There was an osprey nest that had been built on a low radio tower that had been installed for scientific research (detecting the signals sent out by radio transmitters on birds) and there was an elevated boardwalk about 50 feet away from it. The icing on the cake was the fact that the boardwalk was to the east of the nest and there was a 10-15 mph breeze coming in from the south.
This meant that the sun was to my back and that any bird in flight would make a very slow, controlled approach with full broadside lighting about 60 feet away from me. Everything was going my way. As I walked toward the nest, I saw that there were two adults there, and I saw the suggestion of at least one osprey chick in the nest. One adult flew up off the nest, made a slow circle, landed again and then took off (presumably in search of food). All I had to do was wait for the fish-laden bird to return and victory would be mine.
Three hours later I was still waiting. The sun was hot, my feet were getting sore and even the female osprey was getting antsy. Several times, she decided to fly off the nest, grab something for the nest and circle back for a little housekeeping work. I ended up taking 1,347 photos of the family, but could only share one photo with you today, so just know that I managed to capture many facets of the family life of the osprey “on film.”
In this regard, my nemesis ended up giving me far more than I had managed to capture back in 2014, but there was still that photo of a parent returning with a fish that I desperately wanted. That was the No. 1 issue six years ago, and it remains the big one today because I never got it. After 3½ hours of waiting, I finally started back to my car, but heard that distinctive osprey call behind me. I turned to look and saw a hovering osprey fold its wings, dive, plunge into the water and come up with a huge fish. This was it!
I ran back to the nest, pointed my camera to the sky, focused and then just waited for the bird to fly along the only approach vector that made any sense at all. Then, even as I was congratulating myself for a job well done, I watched in horror as the big bird made a lazy pass in the direction of my nest before turning north. It turns out that there was another osprey nest on the other side of the salt marsh and the bird with the fish wasn’t the male that I had seen take off over three hours earlier. Nemesis status confirmed.
That being said, I am delighted to report that the osprey is a species that is doing very well. There was a time in our nation’s history when the survival of the species was in doubt, but the banning of DDT allowed the females to produce proper shells for their eggs and the birds began to multiply once again. While standing and watching the nest, I was able to count 13 individual adults at one time, which was something almost magical for me.
If you find yourself heading to the Cape later this summer, you may see even more birds in flight. The chicks in the nest that I was watching were starting to grow proper feathers and they would take turns extending their wings and working on building up their flight muscles. In a few weeks, they will be following their parents and screaming for fish and, if I could fly, I would be right there with them screaming at the top of my lungs. The only caveat that I would add would be bring me fish — when I have my camera!
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 23 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and officially declared the osprey his arch nemesis in 2014. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.