[Recovered Thread: 31865]

[bobbyz]

I was shooting egrets by a small creek and I heard this commotion. Saw a big bird with something in its claws. I took some shots. Here it is one of them. There is a big fish in the claws. Not sure what bird it is, some hawk?

[geoffs]

bobbyz, did you see it's underside and head as it was flying? Even a little bit? Could you describe those areas of its body?

[slipe]

Looks like an osprey – it is a member of the eagle family.
eidt: It is also sometimes known as a sea eagle.

[bobbyz]

geoffs wrote:

bobbyz, did you see it's underside and head as it was flying? Even a little bit? Could you describe those areas of its body?

Sorry geoff, I don't remember, I was trying to point my camera to it and started clicking. There was a small bird (a tern I guess) which was trying to fight with this big bird to get some piece of the fish. All shots were taken from the back side.

I will try the same spot to see if I get lucky next time.

Maybe it is Osprey, it was much bigger than hawk.

[geoffs]

I was thinking osprey, just like slipe, but didn't want to actually come out with it until I heard if you had been able to sight any other characteristics. Let's assume an osprey for now since we do see the fish in its claws, fishing being something an osprey would naturally be doing.

[eric s]

Do osprey have striped tails like that? I'm really kicking myself for not being able to find my photographic guide to north american raptors.
<eric does some research>
A quick look at some pictures from google images says that yes, they do have striped tails. My vote was between eagle and osprey, but now I vote Osprey. Not many rapters have a wingspan that large, and I don't believe either bald or golden eagles have striped tails. Of course, golden eagles don't normally eat fish, so we can basically rule that out. But Balds and Osprey live on them almost exclusively.

Osprey are noticably larger than hawks. Ospreys have a wing span of upwards of 59-71 in. The common hawks (red tail) is 45-52 in. So if you thought it was "much bigger" than a hawk, then Osprey is the logical choice. If you can, look at the head to see if there is a white stripe (like a mask) over the eye. The other sign is the very white underwing. Bald Eagles are dark brown on both sides of the wings.

Get the idea I like Osprey (and I had fun doing a bit of research)? Next week I'm off to Maine to photography wild osprey (among other things) on vacation.

Eric

[geoffs]

Hey Eric, glad to see that you concur on the osprey determination.

Enjoy your trip to Maine and take LOTS of bird photographs! I've been browsing the NPN website and seen some of your postings on that site. It's very interesting to read the comments that you get from the experienced people up there and very informative too. Who knows, maybe in a year or so I might feel like I have something to contribute at that site...

[eric s]

My big fear is that I won't have enough disk space! I have an old laptop which did ok last year, but that was only for 1 week! It's a mix between "now that I'm better I take fewer, better pictures" and "I'm going to be there for two weeks, with one dedicated to photography… I'll take LOADS of pictures!" I truly fear editing them all and I haven't even started yet.

It's taken me a long time to feel I can contribute to NPN. It is very weird how some things catch on (my question about what to do about some misprints I got garnered lots of comments) and others only get one or two posts (or if it's in a thread, get ignored at all.)

I find it interesting and refreshing to see the completely different take on photography. Originally I found it a bit... "Hokey" initially. But as I've grown as a photographer and I've spent more time there, I've come to a conclusion it's the difference between photography approached as fun (even serious fun) and photography approached as art. Many there not only do it for a living, but really try to create art.

And that does bring a whole new perspective on things.

Eric

[geoffs]

eric s wrote:

My big fear is that I won't have enough disk space!

Have you looked into one of those personal storage devices? You can get very compact units (pocket size) that have builtin 2.5" or 3.5" hard drives for 40-60GB capacity and that run off of rechargeable AA batteries. Also available are units that read your CF storage cards and dump directly to CD! I think these units run around $200 or so.

I've come to a conclusion it's the difference between photography approached as fun (even serious fun) and photography approached as art. Many there not only do it for a living, but really try to create art.

That's a very important distinction because the step up from taking photographs that are just good (or even approaching great) to photographs that could be termed art would seem, in my mind, to be a very large step up. A photograph as art seems like it would require a very conscious methodology setting up and composing the photo, properly exposing to meet the goals for the image in mind, and then the final post-processing to achieve the final product.

It reminds me of a rather large thread on the dpreview site where people were discussing the difference between snapshots versus photographs.

[eric s]

I have considered things like an Image Tank and their various options. They are usually more expensive than $200 (unless you supply the hard disk.) I haven't found it necessary yet, but I'm thinking about it.

Eric