Friends of China Camp

This spring and summer, China Camp visitors were charmed by the antics of a boisterous family of ospreys that had built a nest on pilings just off our Buckeye Point picnic area. With four hungry and lively nestlings crying for food, and the male osprey frequently flying in with impressive catches of striped bass and other fish, the site made for unforgettable bird-watching for those lucky enough to be onsite.

If you missed the show, fear not! Avid photographer Larry Porter recently shared a selection of the beautiful images he took of our resident osprey family. Though he lives near Danville in the East Bay, Larry, a retired engineering manager, “hangs out with the Marin Photo Club, and some members told me they were going to check out the nest. So I went along.”

Larry’s lens caught some beautiful images, and behaviors. For much of the youngsters’ time in the nest, it was the male parent that hunted for and brought them fish (the typical behavior of osprey parents). But Dad got his own meal in first, says Larry, who observed along with his photographer buddies that the male osprey would first perch in a nearby tree to eat the fish’s head, as shown in the second row of images below, while the female and the nestlings would chirp and cry for him to deliver the meal. Eventually the male would drop off the fish, and the female would tear off chunks to feed to the hungry chicks, until they were old enough to feed themselves.

Larry, who has been shooting for decades, estimates he took some 2,000 images of these ospreys, using a Canon FR II with a 600 mm lens. “I hope people enjoy the photos,” says Larry. “I hope they help people know that this kind of wildlife is around them, and that they are good to it and hope it survives.”

We do too. Below, we present a small gallery of Larry’s beautiful work.

—by Harriot Manley/FOCC volunteer