I got into the phone book and looked for a name, that of one of the women who operate the local raptor center. This is part of a project which has developed well in a local middle school (kids just before what we call high school in the USA).   Fortunate, I got her on the first phone call.  I told her what I did for a living and about photos stuff.   Well, she said I made a finger ring for her years and years ago.   So, we opened a door and talked raptors and first of all about the shot Osprey.  With that is bad news and perhaps a touch of good news.

The possible good news is that they believe from close observation of the nest that the male found shot was perhaps not the mate of the female sitting eggs now, the one I photographed.  Kids from the center have been scoping the nest and saw a female on the nest and another adult at the nest at the same time.

The bad news is that the majestic raptor is dead.  It had been on the ground a day or two before being discovered and was very weak.  Efforts to revive it enough to face surgery on the shot wing were not enough and it passed to where spirits of such creatures may go.  This male almost certainly was part of a nesting pair. That is the rest of the bad news.

I will try to work out a way to do a photo essay of the raptor center with the woman in charge. That is a possibility but she knows nothing of this at this time.  A story like that might bring some positive light to the raptors and the educational value could be, well,  valuable to others.  The center has saved many raptors and some  released to fly again.  The dead osprey will not fly and perhaps the chicks associated with this bird may not hatch.  Still, maybe I can work to make a tint of good come from it all.

By then, I would hope the jerk is caught, the one who did the shooting on private government posted land, between homes and a river bank full of people out for excercise.  Odds are that will not happen.  Still, I hope to make some good from it all one way or perhaps another.

I will check the large nest myself and see if another adult is there. In that regard, it will be some relief for me in this particular nesting.  For the other, I am saddened still and angered.    Thanks for hearing me on this.        Tom.