Annapolis, MD - Ella Hofman, who will be a fourth grade student at Matapeake Elementary School on Kent Island this school year, won the Chesapeake Conservancy’s osprey coloring contest and its prize, a trip to visit the nest of Tom and Audrey Osprey and their three chicks, the stars of the Chesapeake’s best summer reality show.

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The osprey family has become an internet obsession for thousands of people who have watched, via a web camera on the Chesapeake Conservancy’s website (www.chesapeakeconservancy.org), as the osprey couple laid their eggs, as the chicks hatched and struggled for survival and now as they near the time to learn to fly.

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“Ella won the contest with a careful use of color and shading and creative additions to the supplied picture,” said Sarah Elder, the Chesapeake Conservancy’s director of development.

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“We are looking forward to showing her the nest. Getting acquainted with nature is an important way through which we learn to value conserving healthy habitat, and that’s our goal,” she said.

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Ella is the daughter of Ammalea and Edward Hofman of Stevensville. This past school year she was a in Rebecca Rickabaugh’s class.

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The contest was open to all students at Matapeake Elementary, which is near the secret location of the osprey nest and web camera.