(Update-2014: Updated the gallery with around 50 new photos from my recent trip.) Located about 45 minutes west of Vero Beach, Florida, and in the Blue Cypress Preserve, is a unique lake called Blue Cypress. (27°44'25" N 80°46'23" W)
It is unique in that along the west shore is a stand of beautiful Blue Cypress trees that stretch out into the water, creating a very surreal scene. Nesting among the branches of these beautiful trees are a couple of hundred pairs of ospreys, one of my favorite raptors.
We have been there to photograph the Ospreys a couple of times. Both times we stayed near Vero Beach and rented a pontoon boat from Middleton's Fish Camp. When you drive into the Middleton complex you step back into old Florida. There are cabins on docks in the water and a few folks with more permanent mobile homes on the property.
It is not a place to find the birds fishing as they do that in a pond away from the lake. But you can find them flying with fish, feeding their chicks and otherwise looking cool.
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