
They're wild creatures, and that male was really old, by osprey standards. I saw a photo of him that a park visitor with amazing camera gear took of him before he disappeared, and he wasn't looking so good then.
Have you decided on what book you're getting? I'm partial to the Golden Guides bird book myself, but a friend prefers the Kaufman guide. Sibley's is good, but suffers from too much information for the beginning birder. Peterson's is split up into Eastern and Western birds and is pretty good (I have both, as well as a really old Golden Guide), but you have to flip back and forth between picture and range map, which is kind of a pain. Audobon has pretty pictures, but is kind of sucky for ID purposes. If you want to go high tech, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds website is excellent (thank you, KnightDriver!), and has a free bird ID app you can download for smart phones that is apparently pretty accurate. And if you want to be AZ specific, the Arizona Traveler Guidebooks series has a Birds of Arizona booklet that I bought about 25 years ago for about $5. I also got one for wildflowers.