The Problem of Scale and Zoom: What is That Up There?

I went out to Robert's Ferry Bridge on the Tuolumne River today to see if the Ospreys had returned to their platform on the south side of the river. It felt like time was passing without any Osprey sightings and I was worried whether they would be back at all. I was also curious if there were any birds nesting in the bridge structure, since I knew of several stick pile nests, but I couldn't tell if any birds were present.

It was really difficult to see the nests because they were in the eaves and framed by very bright skies. I had to depend on the camera to lighten up the darkness up in the eaves and I snapped a couple of shots. On the small screen of my camera the pictures seemed to show a bit of bird tail, and there was some kind of yellow thing, but I couldn't make out what it was, maybe part of the bridge superstructure, or a piece of plastic in the nest perhaps. It wasn't until I saw the pictures on my computer that I realized that my sense of scale was way off. It wasn't a bird tail at all! But at least I know who's on the nest ("who"...do you see what I did there? Do you get it?).

So, add a Great Horned Owl to the list of nesting birds in my area. Oh, and the Ospreys? They were there, both of them. They didn't seem too concerned about the herb garden growing in their nest. Now we watch and wait for all the babies to hatch!