4 minute read
Ospreys of Rothiemurchus
The Ospreys of Rothiemurchus
WILDLIFE IN THE BRITISH ISLES – GREG COYNE, WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER
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Every summer there is one wildlife subject that I just have to go and see. I pack my gear and head up the M6 into Scotland and keep heading north until I reach Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands. Most people who have heard of Aviemore know it as a skiing area but each spring the stunning osprey flies back from Africa to their breeding grounds in the UK. Some head to Wales, some stay over at Rutland, and some head much further north into Scotland; the same birds return to their same nesting sites year after year, often with the same partner. They usually arrive in the UK in early April and stay for around five months before departing our shores again to fly back to Africa.
Once they are in the UK they need to fish and are very partial to estuary fish in Wales, the trout at Rutland Water (but won’t turn their nose up at pike, roach and perch) and, in Scotland at Aviemore, they like to dive into the lochs and rivers for trout and salmon.
Eventually the fishery owners, who were regularly losing fish to the ospreys, caught on and realised that they could cover the cost of the fish losses by building and renting out photography hides for morning and evening diving osprey sessions. It’s now big business for the operators with the hides fully booked to eager photographers between April and August, who want to experience the adrenaline rush of an osprey diving for fish – either to feed itself, a female on the nest, or two or three youngsters at the nest.
To photograph these birds from the hides at Rothiemurchus in Aviemore (they have five hides around the small lochan) you need to be in the hide before light, so the birds don’t see you going in and out. This year, that meant getting into the hide by 3.45am – definitely silly o’clock. You are then in the hide until around 9am when you depart for breakfast. This really is a waiting game and takes a lot of patience, but you must be ready to photograph any second. Having a camera that can operate in low light is a necessity and your camera and lens will be tested to the maximum. These are large birds, having an incredibly big wingspan, but don’t for a second think they are slow. The real challenge is being able to achieve fast speeds on your camera in very low light.
The fishery usually provides a spotter – this is someone who sits a short way from the hides with a good vantage point over to the lochan. It’s his job to alert you when there is an osprey in the air and whether it looks like it will fish. An osprey usually circles the lochan or pond until it sees and fixes its gaze on a fish. It will then circle lower and lower and, if you are lucky, you will eventually get a call over the walkie-talkies from the spotter saying, “diving, diving, diving”. Often the bird will abort the dive as something, anything, may just put it off and the process starts again.
On a successful dive the osprey crashes into the water, talons outstretched to catch and hang on to its fish. Once in the water, and holding the fish, it needs to turn the fish around so that the head of the fish is facing forwards, and then manoeuvre itself to face into any wind or breeze, before it starts to flap those huge wings to gain lift to exit the lochan and head back to the nest. As a photographer, you don’t focus on the fish diving down as any movement or glint of a lens can put the bird off diving. Once it crashes into the water, you lock focus on to the bird, taking some shots and then follow the bird out of the water as it flies off – still taking camera shots all the time. If you are lucky, and have chosen your hide well, the bird will fly towards you. But so many times you can end up with “bum shots” where you just see the tail end of the bird as it flies away from rather than towards you. The excitement of photographing and seeing an osprey dive is immense and if you ever have the chance to see the experience please take it – like me, you will be hooked for life.
