This osprey was building a nest on this structure next to the Oregon City bridge. Although they seem to want to build nests atop the structure they rarely finish or inhabit them.
There must be something about the location, be it the non-stop din of Highway 99, the city lights, or the unsuitability of the structure itself that makes abandonment of the nest inevitable.
While I knew that it would be short lived, I certainly enjoyed watching this bird make trips into the trees, only to emerge several times with new materials for construction. There are numerous other photos I took of this process, but none I liked half so much as this shot.
The silhouette in this picture against the cloudy backdrop really made the photo about the construction of the nest. I love that the four elements (bird, branch, nest, and structure) were all lined up to tell a story. The gesture of the bird and its curved wings add a soft touch to an otherwise stark photo.
A simple story simply shown is the most effective kind, and distilling a frame to its core subjects usually results in a more effective final shot.