Dive, dive, dive....

I remember back in the mid 1970's going up to Loch Garten to see what was one of a very few pairs of ospreys nesting in the UK. Certainly it was the only one where you were just about guaranteed to see them. Since then they have, mainly naturally but also with a bit of encouragement, spread and grown in numbers. They now nest at many sites in Scotland as well as Wales and through central England. They are now so predictable that a few enterprising locations have set ups where you can either watch the birds (Loch Garten, Loch of the Lowes, Manton Bay) or where they come to feed. The latter are normally at fish farms where the owners have realised that for the cost of a few trout they can hire out seats in hides to photographers and make a decent living from it. We have already been to Rothiemurchus where we had good views of ospreys diving into the trout-stocked pool. This year I decided to try the Rutland Water set up, run out of Horn Mill fish farm, on the recommendation of our relations, Wendy and Michael. They have been here many times and got stunning photos so I booked in for an evening session.
I got to the farm about 4 which is down a small lane about 10 minutes drive from the giant reservoir the is Rutland Water. Three other cars were already queuing to get in and vey soon Ian our "spotter" came and let us in. We were taken to the hide and got ourselves set up. The news was mixed though. Two of those in the hide had been there in the morning and saw no ospreys from 4.30am till past 9!! The set up is fairly simple - a rather luxurious hide with comfy office chairs on wheels. There were 6 of us in the hide with plenty of room either for tripods (which no one had) or to hand-hold. The pool was right outside and small fish were jumping frequently. Ian left us with a walkie-talkie as he would wait up the hill and call us if a bird came into sight. We settled down for what we hoped wouldn't be a long wait. As it turned out we were very lucky. The first bird came in after about 20 minutes and over the next 4 hours we had 7 dives from 3 birds.

The pattern was reasonably predictable. When a bird came in it would first of all sit up in a dead tree to the left of the hide with a good view of the fishing pond.

They would sit up there, occasionally calling, bobbing their heads around and flapping in the strong breeze to keep their balance. For us it was tricky as you couldn't hold your lens up all the time as they could spend 15 minutes or more waiting for the perfect time to pounce. There was no discernible trigger move but suddenly they would plummet down off their perch and you had to try and grab the focus.

Photos on the way down were much harder than on the way back up. The reason is that the birds do not gently snatch fish off the surface, they plunge deep into it trying to grab a fish as they scattered away from the diving bird. As you can see from the photo above the fish detect the bird before it hits the water.

 After splashing deep into the water the next thing they have to do is to get back out again. Of the 7 dives we saw, a fish was caught on only 3 occasions. The other 4 were misses. With no fish they could get out and fly off quite easily.

On every occasion when they missed they circled straight back round to the waiting tree and had another go. The bird above, blue 28, had three misses in a row before catching a fish - bad for him but good for us!! When they do grab one then it is a lot harder for them to get themselves up and out of the water as this sequence shows.

Under the water they must be securing their grip on the fish, which is not a small one, and trying to align it so that it faces forward. They do this so it is more streamlined in flight and creates less drag. The first time you see it you think the bird is stuck in the water but they eventually get out and fly off to either eat the fish or deliver it to their young in the nest.

The lake is well stocked with fish, with small ones jumping out of the water constantly, presumably being chased by the bigger ones. You can also see, as in the top shot in the set above, that the big ones appear on the surface looking very relieved that they were not the one chosen by the diving osprey.
By the time we left just after 9 it was getting pretty dim, and photography was getting harder with ISO settings getting pushed out. The ospreys though kept coming for a late evening snack, giving us fun all the way to the end of our session.

You can't say how fortunate we are to now have these majestic birds not only back as regular breeds but on number such that we can get experiences like this with them. Thanks to Ian, Jamie and Lawrence for giving me such a great time. I absolutely know I will be back.