The Osprey Nest at Flamingo
Here’s our story and photos about an Osprey nest at Flamingo, Everglades (actually, we’ll talk about two nests). Joannie and I recently returned from a fantastic winter trip to Florida. Along the way, I had many great opportunities to create landscape, nature, and wildlife photography. One of the major places we concentrated on was at Everglades National Park. At over 1.5 million acres, we barely scratched the surface of this enormous park, but we did try!
Our selfie, taken in the rain, at what is known as “The Entrance Potato” at the Homestead entrance to Everglades National Park.
Joannie and I spent an entire week in the park and the areas around it. That included a lot of time spent in Big Cypress National Preserve, which is over 700,000 acres all by itself! We have (or will have shortly) entire pages on our website that will go in-depth about those beautiful locations, (and much more). Look for them under the Travel and Wildlife section here on our website. I might write some additional blog posts about specific parts of the trip too. Stay tuned!
I am also considering putting together a future photography safari to South Florida with a small group of photographers. If you think you might be interested in being a part of something like that, please let us know!
The focus of this blog post will be on Ospreys in South Florida and a couple of their nests that we found while in Flamingo, Everglades. Especially the one seen below, the Osprey family of five, and their well-known nesting site at Flamingo, Everglades.
Here’s a photo of the huge osprey nest at the Flamingo Marina. This nest is kind of famous, due to its location close by to so many people and activity. This osprey pair has been returning to this nest for more than 10 years! It sits just 15 feet or so from the ground, and right above where canoes and kayaks enter the water!
Three Osprey Chicks in the Nest
We were able to photograph two different Osprey nests at Flamingo, but I focused more of my attention on the “famous” one. That’s because that pair of Osprey had a trio of several-week-old chicks in the nest! I call it “famous” because it came up while doing my research before our trip. The YouTube videos and stories I read all talk about this particular osprey nest that sits right in the middle of all the action at the Flamingo Marina.
When we arrived at Flamingo on our first full day in The Everglades, I immediately knew what all the talk was about! This nest was literally in the middle of all kinds of human activity, and it wasn’t very high off the ground either! The Park Rangers told us this pair had been returning to this nest site year after year for over ten years! The two adult ospreys were so accustomed to everything going on there, that they just went about their business of raising their young and surviving, with human activity all around them!
One of many ospreys that we saw on the Florida Bay Boat Tour out of Flamingo.
The Other Osprey Nest
I didn’t take any photographs of the “famous” nest on our first visit because it had been raining pretty much all day long, and quite hard at times too. But I knew right then that we would be coming back to Flamingo. There was too much to do and see there to not make the nearly 100-mile round trip from our Airbnb in Homestead. The Flamingo area was so good, that we returned on three more occasions that week (in much better weather conditions).
On day one, despite the rain, we took a good look around, including a trip to the nearby campgrounds. It was there, in light rain at the time, that I discovered a second osprey nest, with one adult tending to it. As you can see below, the poor bird was soaked!
This poor osprey has had better, and much drier, days!
There was also a Red-shouldered halk very close by, also soaked. I managed to get this photograph of it just before it flew off.
I photographed this wet Red-shouldered Hawk about 100 feet away from the (also wet) osprey in its nest. They both were near the Flamingo campgrounds in the Everglades.
On our final visit to Flamingo, we stopped back at the campgrounds to capture the sunset over Florida Bay before heading back to our Airbnb. It was then that I captured the photo below of that same osprey, nice and dry this time, basking in the warm sunlight. The bird looks way more comfortable than it did on our first visit on day one, don’t you think?
This is probably the same osprey that I photographed earlier in the week. At that time, it was soaking wet after a downpour.
And, the sunset wasn’t too bad either! Especially with a silhouette of another osprey in the tree! That was a nice way to say goodbye to Flamingo for Joannie and me!
The last sunset of our Florida 2024 trip. The osprey’s silhouette was the icing on the cake!
The “Famous” Osprey Nest at Flamingo
I’m pretty sure that I may never get this close to an osprey ever again!
On our return trips to Flamingo, I spent quite a bit of time watching and photographing the activity on that osprey nest. However, on the last day of our trip, I was on a mission to capture the best image that I could of this family of Osprey. Hopefully, it would be an action shot of some sort. I waited patiently for a decisive moment (with Joannie watching and waiting for me WAY more patiently – thanks Honey!).
It took almost until the sun was setting behind the treeline for me to get this image.
The whole Osprey family, three chicks, and two adults, right in the middle of all of the action at the Flamingo Marina!
While I wish the returning osprey would have had dinner in its clutches, I do love the action and the fact that all three chicks, and the other adult, are all visible! The “kids” were probably wondering why dinner wasn’t about to be served.
In the time leading up to that photograph, I made a lot of images of the nest. However, it was the one below that caught me by surprise! That osprey is the same one that you see about to land in the photo above, it took off from the nest and literally flew right past me! I could hear the wind from its wings!
The osprey was so close to me that I had no choice but to clip its wings in the shot. I couldn’t zoom back any further with my Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM Lens!
I photographed this osprey just as it flew from the nest. It flew by so close to me that I could hear the wind from its wings!
A few moments later, I also captured this close-up portrait (below) of the other adult osprey as it was calling out to its mate from the nest.
A nice portrait of an adult osprey!
Well, that concludes our story about the two Osprey nests in Flamingo, Everglades. We hope you enjoyed it, and the imagery that I was able to capture while on our visits there. We’ll have much more information and photography from Everglades National Park coming soon!
“Osprey Nest at Flamingo” © 2024 Michael Anderson Photography
More Landscape, Nature, and Wildlife Photography
If you enjoy landscape, nature, and wildlife photography, we have a page on our website, Wildlife Photography in South Florida, that can be found at the link below. The four areas featured in that story are:
- Fort Myers
- Six Mile Cypress Slough
- Myakka River State Park
- J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge
This link to take you directly to our Nature and Wildlife Photography in South Florida page.
We also have at least 2 additional pages coming. One will be about landscape, nature, and wildlife photography in Everglades National Park. I’ll also be creating a page that focuses on landscape, nature, and wildlife photography in Big Cypress National Preserve, Ten Thousand Islands Marsh Trail, and The Florida Keys. Please watch for those in the coming weeks.
We also have a gallery of our landscape, nature, and wildlife photography in Florida that is available for purchase. Some of these osprey photographs are in that gallery. We will add images to that gallery as we can from future trips. That link is below.
Please Click Here to Visit Our South Florida Nature and Wildlife Photography Gallery
If you enjoy nature and wildlife photography, we have several other featured pages on our website. We invite you to check them out!
Wildlife Photography in South Florida
Photographs of Bald Eagles
Photographs of Alaska Brown Bears (Grizzlies)
Humpback Whale Photographs
Photographs of Pele’s Well in Hawaii
Nature and Wildlife Photography on Maui – Raising money for the Maui Fire Relief Effort
More nature and wildlife locations to come! Thank you for spending time on our website. Please contact us if you have any questions. Thank you! – M&J