Bella & Beau 2018: Season Finale
(Osprey nest location: Cambridge, Maryland, USA)
September 23, 2018
After my last post and sightings of September 10, I still saw and photographed Beau on the towers on September 11, 12, and 13th. Here’s my clearest shots.
Beau eating a fish – September 11, 2018 @ 10:23 am
Beau – September 11, 2018 @ 12:06 pm
Beau – September 11, 2018 @ 5:18 pm
Beau – September 12, 2018 @ 7:46 pm
Beau – September 13, 2018 @ 9:53 am
Beau – September 13, 2018 @ 7:31 pm
And then *poof* gone! I have not seen Beau nor an Osprey Teen since.
Wow, it has been such a wonderful, entertaining season, full of excitement, challenges, and drama. All thanks to Bella and Beau’s commitment for success! And now here we are, 23 weeks later, to bid a final Bon Voyage to Bella, Beau & family from all of us!
Nature and wildlife certainly are amazing….. 🙂
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For those interested in a little background on my Bella & Beau series, here are a few facts:
This was a journal of an Osprey family’s season and behavior, so there were photos posted on purpose with bad lighting, focus, or weather conditions. Yes, I cringed at times posting some of them!
Unless noted, all photos were taken from my third-floor level balcony at a distance of approximately 120 feet to the Osprey nest platform.
The majority of photos were taken hand-held (my preference to be ready for action/flight shots), although I did at times use my tripod and Wimberley WH-200 head.
Unless I showed a wide-angle shot (the harbor or a sunset), all photos were taken with a Nikon D200 and a Nikon AF-S VR-Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8 lens & Nikon AF-S TC-17E III Teleconverter (1.7x magnification) combo. This set-up resulted in the below full zoom shot.
Remember? There was sort of a nest in the beginning! 🙂
I processed each shot in Adobe Photoshop CS6, then cropped in order to show close-ups. The same photo above is cropped below as an example.
Bella, Beau and family
All wide-angles photos were shot with a Nikon D600 and Nikon AF-S VR-Nikkor 24-85mm f3.5-4.5G ED lens.
From April 13th until September 13th, I took over 15,000 photos, which includes bursts to capture action. Every photo was taken in both RAW and JPEG format. Most photos posted were processed with the RAW image.
Of the 15,000 photos, I have deleted about 5,000 for poor/unfocused quality but have retained the rest in a filing system that provides literally a journal in photos, making it easier to go back and look up any week and/or behavior. You can imagine how hard it was to pick photos every week to share! I could probably start over and post a whole new set of photos each week for this season. 😉
I want to sincerely thank all of you for your views, ‘likes’, and wonderful comments throughout the season. Each one made my day each and every time! I hope you learned a little something about the amazing, resilient Osprey too.
I also want to thank my husband for putting up with my Osprey passion and the dedicated hours put forth and for his assistance in helping to track and alert me of happenings. I couldn’t have done this series without his support!
As I mentioned, stay tuned for a photo rewind post, the best of the best from all the posts, hopefully within the next couple weeks.
(For all past posts on Bella & Beau’s 2018 season, you can click HERE.)
