Living World Photography Competition - 3rd Place

View all entries click here: Living World Photography Competition

Congratulations to Sandy Scott with this image.

Sandy tells us the Story behind the shot

''I know this osprey quite well. This osprey has made his nest with his mate, in the same spot in a very large county park in St. Petersburg, FL adjacent to a parking lot where I often park when I do a training session on my bike. The regulars call him “Fleck” due to a fleck at the 7 o’clock position of his right eye. I often photograph him and on this day, I was photographing an owl’s nest about a mile away and stopped by to see if there was any action at the osprey nest. I found him sitting on a power line with a fish and knowing that he is uncomfortable around people and other birds when he has caught a fish, I readied my camera for action.

He did not disappoint and took off towards his adjacent nest and I started firing my camera. I filmed a complete sequence in which the bird landed on the nest and fed the fish to his waiting mate which the locals have named Jewel. When I got home and was uploading my images, I almost fell off my chair when I saw that I had made this amazing capture of the bird with his wings in the so-called angel wing position, making direct eye contact t with me and clutching a fish in one talon - a one in a million capture!!''