During the summer of 1902, at the age of 66, Homer visited Canada¹ where he executed this and other watercolors. Although the traditional title of the drawing is The Eagles Nest, the birds are not eagles but rather ospreys, sometimes called fish-hawks, smaller than eagles and with different coloration.² The drawing is another of Homer’s many late watercolors representing the manly outdoor life.

—Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Standish D. Lawder, and Charles W. Talbot, Jr., Drawings from the Clark Art Institute, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 1:146, no. 351.