Dive-Bombed by a Raptor With a Dead Fish

I don't normally do funny photos. Landscape and woodland photography doesn't have too many opportunities to make comedic statements. (I admit that there is an obscure school of landscape photographers who focus their lenses on Phallic Rocks.)

This playful photograph of an Osprey with his prize was taken at Ocoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. As for the circumstances: Kara had been watching it before I started tracking his flight, and she later explained that this particular fish was struggling and flopping around wildly in the Osprey's talons (I guess it didn't want to be eaten). So, the Osprey ate the fish's head. That might not be so funny, except for the foolish wide-eyed stare that the Osprey had when it proudly flew over my head.

While I was focusing my attention on the vicious fish-eating Osprey, there was another ferocious predator sitting placidly in a tree nearby. This juvenile Great Horned Owl was waiting for just the right moment to swoop down and rain death and destruction on unsuspecting field mice. This may seem cruel, but I have become a fan of the owls. After some research, it seems that the deer tick that carries the dreaded Lyme's disease is most dependent on the field mouse for its life cycle. So, it seems to me, if we can get some more owls out there to reduce the mouse population, we should be able to reduce Lyme's disease infections. If we could just get Ospreys to eat Snakeheads.

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