During this Coronavirus lockdown I’ve been meeting and speaking to a lot more people on my daily walks. One day I met John and his dog and he was curious to know what I’d been photographing. He told me there was an osprey returned from South Africa fishing at a nearby loch. He said he’d seen it flying over his house with a fish in its talons. I must say I was a bit skeptical, I didn’t think we got ospreys locally, however I went walking to the loch for a look.
On the first two visits to the loch I saw no sign of any ospreys. Then on a third visit with hubby and the FBL (Flippin’ Big Lens) I got lucky. It was a beautiful sunny day and the loch was smooth like a mirror. Every now and then a fish would jump clear of the water. There were lots of gulls around. Then I noticed a gull that looked a bit different from the others. I zoomed in on it and saw it was definitely not a gull but looked more like a bird of prey. Could it be the Osprey? It was chasing some of the gulls off.
Now and again it folded its wings back and looked like it was going to take a dive but then aborted at the last minute. It flew off to the far end of the loch and some crows started mobbing it. Then it came back in our direction again and suddenly plummeted into the loch and brought up a large trout in its talons.
It was mobbed again by crows as it tried to get away with its fish supper. It managed to get clear of them and used a thermal to gain height and fly away off with its dinner.
Where to? Apparently ospreys will travel large distances to fish. Another wildlife enthusiast Les suggested they fly over the Campsies from the Carron Valley to fish. It was thrilling to see this osprey fishing locally!
Sarah's Wildlife Watch 