Scotland in the Summer & Osprey

I always look forward to my next trip to Scotland. It’s a stunning country and I recommend everyone visit the Highlands & Islands at least once. We usually visit Scotland in the lovely months of Autumn, but this year I had another plan with some Osprey. Summer in Scotland is not something I’d ever experienced, so I thought it would be nice to see how different the stunning scenery looked, with a bit more green added in to the mix along with different flowers and birds on show.

Loch na Eilean

Wild Cotton Grass meadows

Wild Cotton Grass meadows looking across to the Cairngorms

Male Redstart

Another (big) reason to visit is it’s the time of year migrating Ospreys come to the UK to breed and raise their young. This would be my first time seeing these magnificent birds, and more importantly first time photographing them. The 4am starts to settle down into the hides was rather tiring, but equally spurred on in the hope of capturing these birds doing what the do best; catching fish, diving into the water at full speed and suprising their prey. The custom built photography hides allowing you to get low and level with the incoming birds.

The hides

After a long wait, at 5:45am we had our first bird spotted. It dived and I managed to catch the below sequence, the light didn’t improve much and no more birds were spotted til our departure at 9:30. A long morning in the hide but least I managed to get some shots.

Osprey – Pandion haliaetus, Cairngorms NP, Scotland

I had another morning booked in and this time the weather was much better, a beautiful peaceful and misty sunrise greeted us at 4:15am down at the pond.

Early start photographing Osprey

This time we had to wait a few hours but thankfully we had a bird that kept missing on three occasions, so at least helped us capture lots more images than the previous morning’s session.

Osprey – Pandion haliaetus, Cairngorms NP, Scotland

In between the Osprey action, we had the usual waterbirds visit the pond which gave us a great opportunity to capture them at this lovely setting.

Heron came into land

Posing Heron with reflection

A Female Mallard shot at f/2.8 for super shallow depth of field

A well stocked pond of Trout couldn’t keep the Osprey away as we watched the bird take three more attempts to dive for it’s breakfast; including one battle where the bird was submerged in the water for a good five to ten seconds trying to gain enough lift to haul this massive fish out of the water. In the end it looked exhausted and dropped it, only to return shortly after and catch a smaller one. Sequence below.

Osprey – Pandion haliaetus, Cairngorms NP, Scotland

After Friday’s morning session I definitely had a smile on face knowing that I’d managed to bag what we came up here for. An incredible spectacle, not only to photograph but to witness as well. Just another string to this magical migrating bird’s bow.

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Scotland in the Summer & Osprey

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