Beautiful May Morning Kayak 2023 in which an Osprey Battles a Fish

I love mornings when there are clouds at sunrise to reflect the orange warmth of light and the water will glow in response.

There is the moment, just before the sun is seen, that the edges of the clouds will appear as if highlighted by hot pink lava

The sky glows in anticipation of the sun and it can almost appear as if the water itself is on fire…

And then the mighty sun rises rapidly in a burst of color spewed across the sky…

I feel a rush of energy to match the vivacious vivid spectacle or colors and I am invigorated

It is in these moments that I find depth in my connections to the natural world and here that I feel most at home.

I like the freedom of the kayak to maneuver the sun into various powerful images.

Something about the appearance behind the trees, as if there is a great fire resurrecting the morning…

To a warm welcoming embrace of the day…

A pair of geese are splashing around bathing

and it truly appears as if they are thoroughly enjoying the experience!

One spreads her wings out to flap them dry.

Another pair of geese calls anxiously across the water, as if annoyed that they are dilly dallying in their bathing. I picture my father rushing my mother, or my son’s friends’ honking horns outside our house and chuckle at how alike we all can be…

This fella just continues bellowing until the wayward couple joins him and they paddle away. I wonder what they were so late for?

AN osprey sits in what I have come to think of a ‘the Osprey Tree’ (so original, what can I say)

There is a nest nearby and most days one or both of them surveys the area from this perch.

Then he takes off

Probably in search of breakfast.

The geese babies (I think of them as Gooselettes even though I know better) are out and about and under the watchful parental eye.

A turkey vulture watches my progression

A heron is fishing along shore

And I notice another osprey peering at me from a tree

I hear a huge splash and notice (of course, just out of clear camera range) an osprey IN the water.

And this osprey is really splashing about for quite some time.

He is trying to rise out of the water with a HUGE fish and the fish has ZERO intentions of going with him

It is looking like the osprey is about to win …

And he is flapping his wings madly and paddling his other leg in the water as if trying to get a leg up, but he just cannot get this heavy frantically flopping fish…

The osprey isn’t giving up, but he isn’t going anywhere, either.

For several minutes, they are locked in this battle, hovering just at the top of the water; fish writhing and squirming and jumping and osprey flapping and clawing and flapping some more.