Seahawk at Chambers Creek

Growing up in New Jersey, we would often visit Island Beach State Park. As a college photography student, I walked the dune trails and beaches regularly. I have two selenium-toned black-and-white images from those years hanging in my house. The park preserves the Atlantic coastline the way it was before side-by-side beach houses crowded The Shore, as we call it in Jersey. Early on, power lines were installed underground but several power poles were left in place for nesting osprey - or seahawk.

In all of those years, I never saw an osprey. Like bald eagles and many other birds, osprey were nearly wiped out from pesticide poisoning. They started making a comeback after DDT was banned in 1972.

About 90% of the pairs nesting along the coast between New York City and Boston disappeared between 1950 and 1970.

This guy defended his fishing grounds from a tree above the Chambers Creek fish ladder. His nest and his mate are downstream at Chambers Bay. I watched him chase off two bald eagles. There is a bald eagle nest downstream above the creek. Upstream, five juvenile bald eagles have staked out fishing perches.

Osprey are a little smaller than bald eagles but not much. They have a similar silhouette in the sky with a 6-foot wingspan. They are white underneath like a peregrine. I will be adding a few of these to my Osprey online gallery. Let me know your favorites.

Here's lookin' at you kid!

Fishing grounds above the fish ladder