The osprey's behavior baffled me until I saw one of the fledglings perched atop the telephone pole beside my car. I had unknowingly been standing under the fledgling while I was setting up my camera and lens. My best guess is that the adult was bringing the fish to the juvie and flew away when it saw me.
Some closeup shots with the super telephoto package.
Cropped.
Really cropped.
I then took a position with the 7DII + 100-400II where I might get the best angle should the juvie take off. I set the 7DII for maximum shutter burst rate (10 shots/sec) and the widest autofocus setting (65 points). Shutter speed was 1/1000 with an aperature setting of
f/8 using auto ISO.
Like an eagle, the young osprey let me know when it was about to depart by letting out a big poop, which landed where I had been standing when I first got out of the car to set up my camera.
The following is a sequence of some of the departure shots. Looking at the wings, I could have used slightly faster shutter and smaller aperature settings to completely freeze the bird in perfect focus. The white body is a bit overexposed, so maybe
- 1/3 exposure compensation was in order. It was about an hour before sunset and the sunlight was coming in at a fairly low angle.
I think the 65 point auto focus system, which Canon says is their latest and greatest, worked well.
