Our town Ospreys have returned and are in the midst of feeding the young ones and circling hurling guttural sounds while attempting to land in the nest. Occasionally both will land and one then quickly heads back to the river for more baby food.

[remark13]

Such beautiful birds of prey. Great shots. How do you get so close? I have a nest a little south of me on the river, of course it is across the river on the opposite side, but my images although I have seen some great action are not nearly as closely framed as the above. Is there a trick or are you lucky with a great spot to get you close? Also shooting with 55-300mm lens....but at your shutter speed and aperture the iso would be much higher on what looks like a similar sunny day. Huh?
Thanks for sharing the photos!

[lukulele]

Such beautiful birds of prey. Great shots. How do you get so close? I have a nest a little south of me on the river, of course it is across the river on the opposite side, but my images although I have seen some great action are not nearly as closely framed as the above. Is there a trick or are you lucky with a great spot to get you close? Also shooting with 55-300mm lens....but at your shutter speed and aperture the iso would be much higher on what looks like a similar sunny day. Huh?
Thanks for sharing the photos!

Thanks, remark.
You are right about the 55-300. The AF is pretty much useless. Manual focusing while following a pretty set circle pattern that each bird does before landing in most cases four or five attempts until grasping the nest. The utility post nest is in our town park and beside a slightly elevated parking lot giving a reasonable angle at each pass. I have better luck with this combination underexposing, then using the shadow, exposure, and lens correction functions on LR 4.4. The Ospreys seem to be very active from 10-11 each morning and the east sun usually conflicts with their landing angle so I rarely get frontal sun. There are also many images that are deleted as well.