by Mary Reid Barrow

Photos by Laney Brown and Reese Lukei

Nature lover and photographer Robert Brown is celebrating an unusual 15th anniversary this month.

Robert with wife Laney and his camera is out on walks around the beach several times a week. He is a keen observer of the natural world from when the smallest of wildflowers bloom to the comings and goings of the largest raptors.

Ospreys are a favorite and he has managed to keep the big fish hawks in sight year round!

“I have now seen at least one osprey in every month since January of 2011 when I began keeping track,” Robert reported in a recent email.

He and Laney spotted this osprey sitting on the camera at the roundabout at the Beach. Laney happened to be the one who snapped the photo this time.

“Why go to Venezuela when you can get all you need to eat in Virginia Beach?” asked raptor expert Reese Lukei who was on the email thread. “No passport required!”

We used to think an osprey that didn’t migrate primarily to South America was either too old or too sickly to make the journey. Now you wonder if global warming isn’t making it easy for the big birds to stick around.

“My hypothesis is that they are ones from much farther north that tolerate our winters and can find enough fish,” Robert wrote.

And more news all in that same email….

I never know what new things I will learn because I am lucky enough to be included in the email correspondence between Robert and Reese. Reese keeps an eye on Virginia Beach’s biggest birds and bands ospreys and eagles, among other raptors.

In additional to his response to Robert’s email about the year-round osprey, Reese’s answer included a photos he took of a ring-billed gull in the Best Buy parking lot near the 1-264 interchange.

“Saw this banded ring-billed gull in the Best Buy parking lot this morning while checking on the bald eagles on the I-264 cell tower nearby,” he said. “The eagles already have eggs in their nest,” he said.

“The remarkable thing about this sighting is that it was the only gull there,” Reese wrote. “Usually there are a mess of them.”

Ring-billeds most often fly round in great big flocks, but this one with its banded leg was easy to spot. The identifying ring around its bill is obvious in Reese’s photos as is the ring round its leg.

And as if it was just an aside, Reese casually mentions that the eagle pair on that nearby nest got an early start and are incubating eggs.

What great nuggets of information in just an impromptu email trail between two great observers of nature!