The world greeted me with a rush of cold air and a cacophony of sounds that I could not yet understand. I lay there, still partly enclosed within the confines of my egg, my body pulsing with the rapid beat of my heart. I could feel the warmth of my mother above me, her presence a protective canopy against the vastness of the world I was yet to see.

In those first moments, I was nothing but sensations – the softness of the nest beneath me, the contrasting sharpness of twigs, the murmur of the water from Cayuga Lake lapping the shores in a steady rhythm. It was a time of great upheaval, but for me, a hatchling Osprey, life was beginning in the most innocent and unassuming manner.

My parents were a formidable team. Father, a majestic creature with a wingspan that cast a shadow over the sun, would soar into the sky, his eyes sharper than the thorns on the bramble bushes. Mother, with her nurturing gaze and tireless patience, warmed the nest perched atop a man-made structure, a sentinel in her own right. They were the lords of the skies, and I, their heir, was destined to follow.

The days stretched long while our feathers grew, each feeding session an adventure in itself. The first taste of fish, fresh from the lake, was a revelation. It was life, distilled into its purest form, and delivered to me by the hooked beak of my Mother. I grew stronger, my feathers forming a tapestry of brown and white, my eyes sharpening, ready to read the stories written in the currents of the wind.

My siblings and I would jostle for space in the nest, each of us eager for our share of the catch. We learned the language of the skies from our parents – the calls, the responses, the warning cries. We practiced flapping our wings, feeling the thrill of the air beneath us, building the muscles that would one day carry us over the lake.

The lake itself was a character in our story, a constant presence that nourished and sustained us. I watched as its moods changed with the weather, its surface a mirror to the skies above. It was our provider, a larder stocked with fish that leapt and shimmered beneath its surface. Our lives were entwined with the lake, each ripple a verse in our ongoing saga.

As I grew older, the nest that once seemed so large began to feel small. The instincts that had been whispering to me became louder, more insistent. The urge to fly, to explore the shores and the forests beyond, to claim my place in the world, grew with each passing day.

The time came when I could no longer ignore the call of the sky. With a mix of trepidation and excitement, I perched on the edge of the nest, the ground far below a distant and indistinct blur. My parents watched, silent sentinels now, their lessons given, their guidance etched into the very marrow of my bones.

Fifty-odd days after hatching I edged out, opened my wings, with a surge of strength, I pushed off to become a fledgling, the wind rushing past me, the world opening up in a dizzying expanse of possibility. I was flying, truly flying, over Cayuga Lake, over the forests, over the world that was mine to discover. For a few weeks I begged food in midair and learned to fish. Soon enough I would fish for myself and, in time, take the sky alone, following a sky road I somehow knew, that my parents would not share.

Click Me to view my photographs on Getty.

Thank you Candace E. Cornell of the Cayuga Lake Osprey Network for your helpful advice.

For further information: —–Poole, Alan F. ; 2019, “Ospreys: The Revival of a Global Raptor”; Johns Hopkins University Press —Mackrill, Tim; 2024; “The Osprey”; Bloomsbury Publishing

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