No Matter What, Men Can’t Win!

Guys, you know how it goes. You work your butt off, and bring home your best offering to your bride, only to be flatly rejected. Well, it’s no different in the animal kingdom. Take, for instance, this Osprey pair we saw this past Sunday at Blackwater …

Our hero has literally brought home the bacon, in the form of a freshly caught fish …

He presents the morsel to his mate …

  Her response to his hard work? "You expect to bring that into this house? Get that thing out of here!"

Our hero is obviously taken aback — shocked even! Why would she reject his gift — reject him?!?

Dejected, he flies off to find a sympathetic friend to offer him some consolation.

He spies his friend, Mr. Bald Eagle.

After a brief conversation, they both agree that he’s screwed, and maybe Mr. Bald Eagle will have better luck. The osprey drops the fish, and the eagle dives to pick it up.

Still bewildered, the osprey flies home to his mate.

Typically, even though the situation is now long over, the female just can’t drop the topic, and she continues to berate the hapless male.

After a time, she finally calms down, and the male settles in to see what other "trouble" he can get into.

The images above are from a series of about 60 images, and are presented in chronological order. I apologize that some of the images in this sequence are soft or blurred. I was firing fast, using a very long lens. Even so, the birds were at quite a distance, and I was forced to severely crop the images. An example of one of the full-frame shots is below:

All images in this sequence are copyright © Geren W. Mortensen, Jr., All Rights Reserved.