Once again, the boyz and I woke up to a cold camper in the upper 50's. We got up late, but got moving a little quicker than yesterday. After I took care of their need this morning, I headed back out to my favorite osprey nest.

As I was walking up to the nest, I could see the kid was out flying around. He was out for a bit and was venturing a little further than yesterday. In fact, he looked like he was trying to land in the trees, but didn't know how to do so and eventually went back to the nest. As I got closer, I could see that mom was sitting in the same tree she was in yesterday.

The kid was in and out of the nest all day long and provided some awesome opportunities for photos. A couple of times he landed at the tippy top of trees and had a hard time balancing and wound up leaving and heading back to the nest. Apparently he hasn't yet realized that you have to land on a branch and not the top of the tree like a tree topper. On one of his times out, he landed on some rocks on top of hill, overlooking the lake. That was a fantastic spot as I was able to get up on the hill and sit on the ground and get pics of him at eye level. Mom and dad were so unhappy that he had landed on the ground and were yelling and yelling and yelling at him. He ignored them and they both flew into the nest and continued to yell at him to get off the ground and back to the nest. The parents yelled for at least 5 minutes before he obeyed and went back. 

The light was fantastic and the sky was a beautiful blue all day. It was nice to have cooperation from both him and mom. Mom did a few fly arounds, landed in the nest twice and chased two or three other ospreys out of the area throughout the day. She even chased after a great blue heron who did a fly by, right over the nest.

It was a fantastic day and I thought I would share a pic of the kid on the rocks! I'm still so thrilled with that opportunity! In fact, I was so close that this shot is not at all cropped.