In the past ten years I have been privileged and blessed to be able to see and photograph so many amazing animals in several states and even another country! While it would be impossible to choose a favorite, I have to pay special homage to my feathered friends who always show up when I bring my camera. They preen, clean, hunt, fish, flirt, fluff and fly for my viewing pleasure. At times I have felt they were asking to be captured in a photo for posterity.
Birds of prey fascinate me, the connection I feel with them very strong. The Osprey and Hawk are fiercely efficient hunters and fishers. It was not unusual to see them flying overhead with a fish or small animal in their clutches. On this particular day the adult osprey flew over the hood of our car right in the middle of Port Orange Florida, lunch firmly in its grip, and swooped into the tree in a nearby parking lot. You must know what happened next-one of hubby’s famous batwing u-turns to get me back to where that bird was about to enjoy its meal. Thank goodness for my zoom lens and the fact that my friend the Osprey was more enthralled with its fish than being concerned about what I was doing.
I hope you like my very #FeatheredFriday post! I plan to share more with you next week. Happy #Free48 everyone. You are welcome to join me in sharing your own #FeatheredFriday images and you can link back here in the comments if you like.
Time for lunch! Care to join me for sushi?
Dreaming Reality 
Nice picture Cheryl ! The neighborhood hawks will check the bird feeders here and once in a while I am lucky enough to see them. Not often enough and they usually don’t stop to pose. Too busy looking for the next meal.
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Well, ary I take advantage of their down time while preoccupied with food. But in Florida we had Red Shouldered hawks in our neighborhood almost daily. I could hear them calling out and once I took photos they would move along. One day I did a recording of a pair. They were the coolest.
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That slideshow is fantastically good! I have never seen images so close of and Osprey “dissecting” a fish.
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Thank you. I have others that I will be sharing over the weeks ahead, hopefully. They are quite efficient eaters. Happy Weekend to you.
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Thank you Dan! Happy #Free48!
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Birds of prey are incredible creatures. The eagle fascinates me the most. Too strong, powerful. There are those ones that hunt the mountain goats. A goat that myself I can’t even lift off the ground. But the eagle carries it away as if it were a chicken or a fish. It’s incredible.
Do you wonder that if a human being can do what an animal does naturally, the human is said to have superpowers? Whether it is strength or speed, throwing webs or flying, swimming, accuracy, etc . . . qualities that animals possess by virtue of being just themselves. We should surely love the animals. They are superior.
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Well, they came first. I feel their wisdom is so much more instinctive than our own. I once saw an Osprey flying across the highway with a huge, prize fish in its clutches. Just as it flew over the fish wriggled and fell-splat-onto the road in front of us. That fish would have been a prize for a man fishing! I felt badly for them both.
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What an exciting sighting and image to photograph too! I have a lovely Osprey with a fish with one downside…it’s a butt shot.
I went Osprey watching last year and if I remember correctly I may have finally got one with a fish flying toward me. I haven’t worked on those images yet. I tend to let my images marinate a while before working on them.
This one is wall worthy!
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Thanks Deborah! I have been fortunate with some go,den bird opportunities while in Florida, Louisiana and Costa Rica. I tend to edit them,post a few on Social media then forget them. Right now I have a wonderful slate that I’d like to put a Great Heron/Egret shot onto. I just need to have it printed somewhere and that is proving more challenging than it used to be.
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I’ve been have good luck using MPIX for my printing lab needs.
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Thanks Deborah.
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You’re welcome!
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What incredible shots! I too love the raptors. For the last few years I have been watching an Osprey nest in Maine. From eggs to fledging, wow!
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Aww how cool, Pam. I once had a baby Osprey on its fledgling flight from the nest, land on our roof and spend about thirty minutes with me as I looked up at it and snapped a dozen or more photos. But…that will be another post. 😊Thanks!
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What a magnificent bird! Great capture, Cheryl. That guy looks like he enjoying that lunch.
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Doesn’t it though? The thing I miss most about Floridabut in Spring the hawks will be more visible here…and I will be less frozen..thanks Dan! 😊
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We only see hawks in winter and spring, when they have to expand their hunting ground. We worry about our bunnies and squirrels, but they are beautiful birds.
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Well I suppose there are enough rats and chipmunks around for these here in the South. That is normally what I see them with if not fish. Don’t know why but they don’t seem to have a taste for squirrel….🤔Speaking of bunnies there is a huge one that we have been seeing in our front yard and across the road.
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Maybe squirrel is an acquired taste – or maybe they have a peanut allergy 😉 We seemed to have lost our chipmunks in the fall. Not sure if they chose early hibernation, found a better neighborhood or got eaten, but they are gone for now.
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Ha. Maybe so. I have mixed emotions about our chipmunk withdrawal. They did so much damage to our vegetables this past Summer. 😏
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They do a lot of damage. I’m waiting for part of my sidewalk to collapse. I know they tunneled under it, and there are some big openings. I wasn’t able to get to those repairs this fall.
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Well when it warms up you’ll have lots of time I suppose. I think a lot of what my hubs blamed on the ‘other’ rodents in the area was perpetrated by those cartoon inspirations.
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They didn’t bother the veggies, but they put holes here, there and everywhere.
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These guys were like cruel birds and what they do to figs. They eat a hole in the blushing fruit and leave it hanging on the vine like a beacon to other terrorist animals. “Come, come, enjoy all you want. She don’t kill animals.” 😱
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