A Florida photographer got a little more than he bargained for when he snapped a photo of an osprey.
The lucky shutterbug, who goes by the name of Doc Jon, was walking on Madeira Beach, west of St. Petersburg, when he snapped a photo of an osprey flying about 400 feet off the ground. While Doc Jon saw the shark, he was surprised by what he saw after he got home and looked at the photos.
"I go home, and I open it up and see [the photo] and I saw the tail first on the fish and realize it was a shark tail," he told weather.com. "And then I zoom in and I'm like, 'Holy crap, that's a shark.' And then I see the fish in the mouth ... I just couldn’t believe I had gotten that picture."
That's right. It was an osprey carrying a shark that had just snagged a fish.
Everyone got a snack .... well, except for the fish. (Photo: Doc Jon/Facebook)
Doc Jon shared the images on Facebook but didn't get quite the response he was hoping for, initially.
"My first thought is I wish it was cleaner," he said to weather.com. "It's not a very good photograph, but that far away and no tripod — it's a pretty long-distance shot."
Even if Doc Jon's not happy with the quality of the shot, he does acknowledge that the contents of the photographs are pretty darn cool.
The osprey flies off with its combo meal. (Photo: Doc Jon/Facebook)
Ospreys love seafood, hence their alternate name: sea hawks. Fish makes up 99 percent of the diet of the osprey, which has evolved closable nostrils for when it dives in after its prey. Given its diet, the osprey can be found just about anywhere there's a large enough body of water to support it.
Sharks aren't fish, of course, but that doesn't mean ospreys just toss them away. Food's still food, after all. it's even possible that this particular osprey was diving after the fish that the unidentified species of shark got to first and the osprey just opted to supersize its lunch instead.
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