New Critter at the Creek

SELF | Jan 14,2009 | swampsniper

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I've watched a pair of Osprey for several years now, I can usually find them but they are hard to approach. I saw them today, couldn't get a good angle, moved on down the creek a bit, and this guy was sitting there. It looks like a young male, and he isn't jumpy. Hopefully, no one will give him reason to be. Look at the size of the foot, they have awesome strength behind those talons.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Pinglist

[mcshot]

Thanks for the pictures swamp. What’s he sitting on? Looks like part of something big and it’s in a creek?
mc :-)

[SWAMPSNIPER]

It’s the mast on a sailboat.

[rockinqsranch]

Thanks again SWAMPSNIPER for the beautiful photography, and the interesting subject matter. My wife and myself appreciate it.

[JoeProBono]

Your Osprey sounds reliable

[PERKY2004]

Simply gorgeous!!!

[KoRn]

A beautiful bird, as almost all are.

Having said that, it looks like a Bald Eagle that had a rough night. I believe the last thing it remembered was staggering into the wrong bar, and it woke up the next morning in a park, half naked with tattoos.

[the invisib1e hand]

That’s almost majestic, that second picture.

[Hot Tabasco]

From what I've seen, Osprey are all over the place in Florida.

A local metro park here with a large lake had a 5 year govt. funded program to bring young ospreys there in the hopes they would make it their home. But after migrating south in the fall, they never returned.

Can't say I blame them, Michigan isn't a very popular state to live in these days.....

[Hot Tabasco]

Looks like he’s sitting on the top of a sailboat mast, am I right?

[SWAMPSNIPER]

About a 30 foot sloop.

[Aliska]

Nice shots! Looks like you were fairly close. How does that camera do wide open? Do you always set the white balance manually? We were just talking about that today. The sky is so blue, did you use a filter? I'm always curious about cameras when I see nice results like that.

I had a Canon with 12X zoom but found that I couldn't find my target, just one big blur. Maybe you have to start low, locate the target and zoom in. Interesting specs on that, lens IS, you can choose the ratio 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, never heard of that.

[Hot Tabasco]

Remember last week I mentioned a great blue heron in my area of Michigan.

Well, Monday as I was leaving my subdivision down the snowy road, on the right side of the road is where I usually see the heron standing next to the drainage creek which flows under the road via a culvert and on down the left side of the road.

A little ways down I saw the coolest opportunity for a photo of that great blue heron. He was sitting on the top of a tree stump which was about 4' high and all fluffed up because of the cold. What was really cool was that all the area was covered in snow and the stump was at the edge of the drainage creek which was totally frozen over........and it was down in the woods.

I'm going to take a walk down that way tomorrow morning and see if I can get a picture of it........

[genefromjersey]

Magnificent birds ! Beautifully adapted for fishing.

Great shots !!

[mplsconservative]

Thanks for the as always beautiful shots. Very majestic birds. Those talons are amazing. My little Jack Russell would be worried.

We’ve heard an owl in the woods off our backyard the last couple of nights. Going down to -22 tonight (air temp, not wind chill) and I suspect he may be checking out our straw bales we use to mulch the roses. I usually find a mouse nest or two in them in the spring.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I had the white balance set for cloudy although today was sunny. It boosts the color a little bit. Did you have the Canon set on full time auto focus? If not you will have a rough time tracking at high magnification. The FZ30 is 8MP, but if you set it to shoot at 5MP it is the same as using more lens power. It is NOT the same as digital zoom. Using the center part of the sensor allows the metering areas to be filled more by the subject rather than by background, and you get better auto exposure and auto focus results. The FZ30 likes light, it can get balky on a cloudy day, it will work, just got to mess around more. I always use a UV filter to protect the lens, but it does help with sky color. Winter skies in Florida can be brilliant anyway, the filter isn't really needed that much.

http://www.pbase.com/tsiya

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v244/tsiya/

http://cabbagehammock.blogspot.com/

[StAntKnee]

Do the chickens have large talons?

Tip of the hat to Napoleon Dynamite.

Apologies for wrecking the thread. But when do you ever get a chance to use that line?

[dixiechick2000]

WOW!

What a beautiful creature!
And, what beautiful pictures!

Thank you for this treat!

[Nailbiter]

for later