The Osprey Are Back!

Today would have been my dad's 74th birthday. He loved being outdoors; hiking, camping, fishing and taking photographs. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a love of nature. In fact I spent the morning scanning some of his old slides to use as reference material for upcoming drawings and paintings. But instead of starting on one of those drawings or paintings, it was such a beautiful day today that I decided to take a walk along the river. Partially because of my good old friend Procrastination and partially to convince myself that, although there's still snow even on the tops of the lower mountains, Spring really is here at last. Everyone else had the same idea, too. Lots of kids on bikes and happy dogs along the river trail.

At one point a merganser flew past so I ran over to the edge of the river to see if I could spot where it had landed and maybe sneak up and get a picture, but no luck. Instead I found this little guy out sunning himself amongst the rocks.

















Then the prize of the walk - an osprey! It was circling over the river in the distance. Suddenly it pulled in its wings and dove straight into the water. Even from far away I could clearly see the splash. And what luck; it flew right past me as it headed back upriver with the fish it had just caught!