Barry Brown wanders out to the headlands of North Stradbroke Island every day with a camera in hand, hoping he’ll capture something special – like a whale spouting or a fur seal resting on a rock.
Last week, Brown was in his usual spot near Whale Rock, at the South Gorge walk on the island south-east of Brisbane, hunting for birds to photograph.
Several osprey had flown in from their nearby nest that morning to joust over fish in the water. But around midday, Brown spotted one osprey flapping its wings and struggling in the sea.
“I got the camera going and zoomed in. I couldn’t see any fish,” he says.
“I was feeling pretty anxious. I thought, man, if I had a surfboard I’d jump in there and do something.”
A few minutes after Brown had that thought, he saw local surfer Bill Lowe and a friend grab their boards and paddle out to the bird.
They found its feet and wings tangled up in fishing line.
Attempts to gently untangle the osprey had limited success, before a nearby fisherman tied a knife to the end of his rod and held it out to them.
They managed to cut the line, before seeking to transport the exhausted bird back to shore.
But when Lowe put his hands underneath the osprey, the bird gripped on, drawing blood.
“Ah yeah, it wasn’t a bad injury … His little talons went into me a bit, but I put him back into the water and on to my soft board, so he could grab on,” Lowe says.
By then, Brown had switched into “journalist mode”, taking as many photos of the rescue as he could.
When he saw the osprey had made it to shore, Brown brought down a towel and they carried the bird to a quiet spot on the headland, away from the tourists on the South Gorge walk.
Lowe’s grandchildren, who had been picking up plastics on the beach that morning, watched over the osprey, shooing away the butcherbirds that were encircling as it dried out on the grass.
“It stopped shaking at a certain point,” Brown says.
“It did the osprey thing where the head goes side to side with the neck, raised its shoulder, one of the wings, did a bit of a left-foot, right-foot sort of walk.
“[I thought] oh righto, here we go. So it got a proper run, spread its wings and hooked into a takeoff. All good.”
Brown says he feels privileged to be part of a “really vibrant, observant community that tries to see the good in every day”.
“This is just proof that every now and then, despite all the trauma and difficulties that go on in community and in the environment, some good stuff happens,” he says.
“I just happened to be there in the regular spot.”
