The young ospreys were busy foraging on relatively small fresh water fish, and I’d say they caught something about every second time they went in the drink. Before they come back in the spring the best ones will have perfected their hunting skills, and the useless ones will have perished.

Denmark holds perhaps 2-3 breeding osprey pairs, but is temporary host to many more during migration seasons. It is nonetheless something of a rarity to even meet an osprey around here, let alone “flocks” of three or more – but that was precisely what I did the other afternoon.

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours in the company of at least 3 different birds, maybe more – whenever they caught something they would fly off to have their snack in privacy, only to come back later (I assume) and resume the hunt.

I had the 500mm lens, coupled with the 1.4 TC, mounted on the tripod – this is the only way I know how to keep shooting for so long without ripping the arms out at the sockets. It worked well enough all things considered, but my panning skills need quite some practise before I will be consistently getting tack-sharp images of the birds impacting and emerging from the water. That part is DIFFICULT!

I’m hoping to go back tomorrow to have another go at it, not least because the skills needed to get these images are universally desirable for a nature photographer. If things work out I may add another gallery above this one.

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Open the gallery by clicking on the first image, then use the mouse or the keyboard to browse through.