Two-Week Old Osprey Chick

I spent 4 hours on the Patuxent River this morning with a small group of photographers and a Maryland State Park Naturalist, Greg Kearns.  He has been working with the Osprey in this location for 40 years and has an incredible amount of knowledge.  Usually during this boat outing he would do banding of the chicks, but they were still too young. This year the Osprey were late nesting, probably due to the cold wet long spring.    

We stopped at one nest which was right at boat level and he brought this tiny little chick into the boat so we could photograph and hold it.  It was amazingly soft and so warm.  Because I had been using my long lens for photographing the adults in flight, I had a bit too much lens for this closeup. The background colors are the shirts and skin of the various folk who were with me.  

I have barely been through my 1000+ shots, but this one popped out at me