A sure sign of the advancing season is the arrival of juvenile osprey to the canyon. Each spring our osprey nesting pair returns to mate and raise a new family of chicks. They travel thousands of miles from their winter vacation to meet at the same nest and greet their lifelong partner for the joyous event. As August nears, their young gain stength and skill, and finally take flight in a burst of energy, hope and a bit courage too I imagine.
I wasn’t confident of a successful outing yesterday. I wasn’t visiting the canyon at the normal time just after sunrise and I was also visiting on a busy weekend, a sure recipe for failure.
However, the young osprey are so excited to hit the air that they often don’t pay much attention to the hoardes of fishermen from the city, lining the banks below. I was fortunate to see at least one juvenile and one adult on this visit. One new chick would be good, but two would be better!
I started following this pair many years ago, when they had a nest along the riverbank where they could be easily watched from the mountainside on the other side of pristine stream. Every year except one, they have produced two healthy chicks that have attained flight late in the summer. One tragic season, a big windstorm took down their tree and nest full of eggs with it. If you would like to learn more about our osprey, and other raptors around Colorado, please consider my book, Seasons of the Raptor, now available on Amazon for $12.95. It describes the circle of life for the great birds of Colorado with tons of pictures and tips for spotting and photographing them for yourself.
Here a a couple more action shots from yesterday’s visit:
On my way out of the canyon, a glance off to the west revealed a lone juvenile bald eagle, waiting in vain at the nest for the return of his parents. Unfortunately, his parents have departed for the summer, after successfully raising two eaglets to flight. Soon this one also will leave the nest, never to return.
The young ones will most likely join the annual migration while they mature. In about three years they will find a mate and build a nest of their own.
The parents will reunite in December to prepare the nest for another season of breeding, and I will be excited to capture photographs of them in action, building the nsst and fishing in the only open water available to them.
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Steven W. Krull is a renowned photographer and author who has been photographing and writing of the beauty and wildlife of the Colorado Rocky Mountains for over two decades. Please visit his website at S.W. Krull Imaging to view his work, including thousands of prints for sale, stock images for commercial use, and his library of published books.
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Colorado Photographer / Author / Wildlife Advocate | Steven W. Krull 