Osprey Nest
April 23rd, 2023
It was a hot and muggy morning at Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. The wind was almost nonexistent and the bugs were out in full force. My wife sprayed me with bug spray which helped a little bit but the bugs still managed to find me. A number of times I had to ignore them while I got a shot of the bird I was looking at.
And then there was the muggy air. The front of my lens kept on getting fogged up. I kept wiping it with a cloth as I watched the birds. Dehaze in Lightroom can help with this but it is better to get it right and so the process of wiping continued.
After the bugs and muggy air got to be too much, I decided to go out and look for other opportunities with the car. I kept missing shots as I paused to wipe or to catch. I had already gotten great shots of reddish egret so decided to look more.
I was rewarded with a pair of osprey on a nest. I took out my lens and waited. Normally I have to wait a long time for movement. We had a little of a breeze that kept most of the bugs off me so I resolved to wait. On this day there was barely any wait at all. One of the osprey flew off almost immediately and perched near by. I concentrated on the nest and could see the other adult feeding babies although I could not see the babies.
