Ospreys nesting near Turlock Lake

I did a brief little explore on Sunday to the area around Turlock Lake and the Joe Domecq Wilderness on the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada foothills. There were a fair number of birds out and about, including Meadowlarks, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Western Kingbirds. The attention-getter of the day were the Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus).

The Ospreys are common in the area, as the Tuolumne River and Turlock Lake both provide plentiful fish. It's nesting season, and I saw two different nests as I explored.

The nests are massive. According to Cornell, they can reach 13 feet deep and 7 feet across. It makes one wonder how the trees or poles don't fall down (or maybe they do).