Since I have a vicious personality, I have a special affinity for birds of prey. So even though I had concentrated on photographing an Osprey nest near Key Largo on February 19, I was focusing again on Ospreys just three days later when Russ Burden’s nature photo tour of birds of Florida got to Sanibel Island. We had driven clear across the state from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Coast. Our first destination there was Sanibel Island, a barrier island just offshore from Fort Myers.

First, I shot this Osprey flying overhead:

An Osprey Glides

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Then, it or one of its relatives or its mate landed:

Landed on a Stump

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But we took a break from Ospreys to watch the sunset:

Shooting the Shooters from the Sanibel Pier - From Left: An Unknown Stroller, Cal, Russ, Barbara, and Cheryl

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Finally, after sunset we packed up our gear and headed out. But then we spotted the Osprey eating a fish that it had just caught.

A quarter of an hour after the sun had gone down was obviously too late to take a picture. But I tried anyway, since my philosophy is that if you try, you can fail, but if you don’t try, you will fail.

So, I cranked the ISO setting way up — to 6,400. Normally I don’t go above 400 to avoid noise or grain. I had to guess what I was shooting, because the camera could see the Osprey and its prey much better than I could. The result surprised me:

Dinner for the Osprey

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This Osprey is a vicious killer. It’s a carnivore like me.