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Just back from a 3 day trip at Rothiemurchus fisheries near Aviemore on a tour run by excellent wildlife photographer and guide Jo Mcintyre, trying to capture Ospreys fishing in a trout lake, something I had booked up about 18 months ago and counted down the days for!
Monday: Up at 5.30 AM to catch flight to Inverness from Luton, after half an hour delay, arrive at midday. After battling my way through the golfers up here for the Scottish open, I got a taxi to the train station, and then a train for the 30 minute journey to Aviemore. Jo kindly offered to pick me up from the station (not part of the tour!), and I loaded my packed bags full of tripod, camera bodies and lenses into her car for the 10 minute trip to the hotel. We stopped on the way at the ‘Rothie’ fishery so that I could have a look at the location and whet my appetite even more as I looked at the 4 hides in different locations around a big pond with around 300 Rainbow and Brown Trout in. After I had checked into the excellent Boat hotel at the nearby Boat of Garten village I had a couple of hours to kill, so went for a walk through a wooded area to see if I could see any wildlife.
It was a very quiet and peaceful wood with not much about, but as I got to the end of the track I was aware of a movement in the trees and saw a
Red Squirrel run up a tree. I got a couple of backlit pictures with my 100-400 before it ran off, then returned to the hotel for dinner with the other guys and Jo on the trip. After a nice ‘ice breaker’ meeting with 4 of the other guys, we retired for an early night before our 3.30 AM alarm for the first hide session.
Tuesday: All of us up and ready to leave at 4 AM, with Pro photographer Tom Way joining us after arriving late in the night, all struggling to control our excitement of the first ‘shoot’ at this early hour. We got to the hides at 4.15 and met John our ‘spotter’ who sat in a hide in the field and warned us of birds in the area and when they are diving, something you need as from the hide you cant see anything much more than the pond, as they are all at water level to get great angles for photos. Jo used her vast Osprey experience to check the wind direction and decide which hide should be best, and we all set out kit up. Everyone had a variety of lenses etc, but it soon became apparent that around 300mm was about what was required, any longer and you were in danger of clipping the wings, so keep them for the ‘Arty’ shots! As is the normal case with Ospreys, there was a dominant bird around perched in a tree not far away, and as soon as a new bird drifted over there would be a lot of chirping but no diving to start with. Johns’ Scottish accent would crackle on the radio ‘bird overhead, circling’, then ‘chased away’! We could just see the birds through the hole in the hides overhead, and the anticipation was immense as we waited for a dive. There was plenty of other birds to keep us occupied, Herons kept coming and going, ducks with young, 
Sandpiper,
Oyster catchers and a Hooded Crow and we all snapped away to get used to the ever changing light as dawn broke so we would be ready for the Osprey. Eventually at about 8.30 AM, John’s voice crackled on the radio ‘bird circling, getting lower’ and we all held our breath like a group of fighter pilots waiting for the ‘scramble’ call, before the magic words came through ‘DIVING’, and in a second the bird appeared at top speed and crashed into the water fully submerged, then flew off towards some trees and disappeared, all over in about 5 seconds! It was an impressive spectacle to witness, but in and out so quickly it was going to take a while to get our eye in to get some good shots. 
Most got a couple of ‘bum shots’ as it flew in over us and turned the wrong way to fly out away from the dominant bird, but it was a start. It became obvious that we were going to have to work hard to get a decent picture, but Jo and Tom were very good offering advice on settings etc, a big help having their experience when you get so little time to get a shot. We had a couple more ‘fly pasts’ but no more dives, so went back to the hotel to get breakfast before it closed at 10PM, all a bit more experienced in Osprey photography and the patience required to get the shots. After time to download the images, get an afternoon nap and sort some food out for the evening, we were back in the hide again around 4 PM. The light was really nice, but unfortunately despite a few fly pasts no dives, got some shots with the 7D and 500mm lens of Oyster catchers mating 
and a family of ducks, but a bit frustrating to get no more dives to practice on, but thats the way nature works, the week before they had had an average of 4 to 5 a session.
Wednesday: Up at 3.30 AM again and ready for action at 4.15. Once again a few birds in the air but no dives, and then about 7.30 the fateful words on the radio, ‘circling, circling…….DIVING…No aborted!’ the tension was killing us as this bird kept starting a dive and aborting as we were ready then stood down, talk about adrenalin, and we are only taking photos! Eventually we got ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ and we got the splash as the bird came in but it missed and didn't get a fish.
We got some more shots as we honed our technique and waited again. Once again at about 8.30 we got ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ and another bird crashed in with violence and majesty all at the same time as it plucked a trout out and took it off away from us and the dominant bird again. 
After this one Jo moved us to a different hide as she could see what was happening as well as the wind changing and reasoned we would be in a better position if we got another dive. We all settled down and around 9 AM we got it again, ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ and another bird crashed in towards us, and after wrestling with the fish for a while it dropped it as it left the pond. 
I got my best shots so far, (although lost my focus as it flew away!) as did some of the others, so we were feeling more confident for the evening and day 3 as we retired for breakfast. Back at 4 PM, and despite a couple of birds flying around, no dives, just a shot of a Mallard couple mating.
We amused ourselves trying to get a shot of a trout leaping from the pool, but with the light fading we retired at 8.30.
Thursday: Once again up at 3.30, and as we got in the car 2 Ospreys were circling high above so that was a good sign! When we got to the hide there was a dead fish on the side of the pool, probably the one dropped in our last dive yesterday, and before long the Hooded Crow came and started pulling it about and eating it, then the Heron drifted in as well. Suddenly around 6.30 there was a bird around and then ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ and a bird came in and took the dead fish off the edge of the pool to our left. A couple of guys got shots, but I couldn't get round fast enough to the left and just got out of focus shots, a chance missed! Jo had got us in a great position again and at 6.50 it came again, ‘circling, circling…….DIVING!’ , and another bird splashed in and took a fish. I was getting more used to how they come in and move in the water which was helping get focus, and I got my best shots to finish on, just a shame the light had dropped a bit so we had to have the iso up and shutter speed down to get exposure, but gave a nice blur to the wings etc, and my new Canon 1 D X handled the iso quite well so glad I pushed the boat out to get it! Nothing else came in, and at 9.30 it was ‘game over’, we all left with some good pictures but as ever, wanting more!
A stat from our trip that illustrates how difficult Osprey photography can be is that we spent a total of 25 hours in the hides over 3 days, for a total of about 30 seconds of Osprey action! Even though we were a bit unlucky with the frequency of dives, I think a good trip would probably be about a minute of action over the same hide time, so not a lot of time to hone your technique. I must say in the long spells between dives we had a great camaraderie between the 6 photographers and Jo, with plenty of fun as we passed the time. A big thanks to Jo and the others for making it a very enjoyable trip, and I've defiantly got the appetite for more, and a special thanks to Ron for giving me a lift each morning.
Now its a mad rush to Silverstone for the GP2 support race at the British Grand Prix, another busy few days ahead!
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Click on this link: https://www.gbjphotography.co.uk/index.php?page=gallery&name=2025-top-shots&cid=55 for my top photo picks from 2025. An eclectic mix of memories and events, from sitting in a freezing field waiting for Owls to show, sitting at the side of the road on the Isle of Man as bikes come past at 180 MPH, fighting with the crowd to get the shots at various gigs and sitting in a river at Dove Dale waiting for dippers to come out, to name a few! I’ve had photos accepted in various exhibitions, shows, competitions etc, and all have great memories attached to them. Happy New Year!...
Gavin Bickerton-Jones | 21st June 2025 | Blogging
Precious time spent with a local Vixen. There is a bit of woodland near where I live, and over the years i have paid it visits, after i spotted some fox cubs there around 10 years ago. It is a small wood, with a bank in it that over the years Badgers and Foxes have sporadically made their home for a while. Den on far left middle. Last year i spotted evidence of Badgers about, bedding material and fur on barbed wire, and sure enough I caught a bit of footage on my trail camera of a lone Badger coming out around 10 PM. This was in April, and over the next couple of months i went down there a lot with a flash set-up etc, sitting in the dark trying to get a nice shot of the Badger, but to no avail. I lost interest for a while, then in early April this year I visited again to see if any signs of activity. There were no Badger signs, but there had been digging activity and signs a Fox was around, so the trail cam was put into action again. This time i didn’t see any Badger signs, but there was definitely Fox activity and movement recorded on film, so I moved to stage 2 of my photography plan, little did I know what an emotional roller coaster I was about to embark on! I spent the next week making a water proof housing for my EOS R Canon camera, and also a Sabre trigger which fitted nicely into a Chinese take away plastic carton! I then made a bracket that I could fit to a tree for a remote flash, and once ready I took it to the wood and set it up. The movement trigger was a laser, and you can set the frequency of the signal up as well as the length etc, so a bit of trial and error to start with. The camera battery was just the normal LP6-EN, and i made sure everything was fully charged, focussed on a point near the den and went home. The next morning I dashed off to the wood to see if i had ‘caught’ anything, and the camera battery and flash batteries were flat, so a positive sign maybe. When I got home i put in a spare battery and was shocked to see i had over 1000 shots, all of the same scene with no animal present!! I had to trawl through all the images just in case one in there had something on it, but no joy. On a positive note, no matter what time the images were shot they were nicely exposed and it had all worked, so just needed to fine tune the set-up. Over the next couple of weeks I put the set-up out a few more times, tuning the trigger frequency so less chance of flash triggers, and I found some road kill on a bike ride so set that as a focal point, and after a few more blank nights with the shutter count getting less but still no Fox, I got there on the 14th April and all batteries were still alive, and I had 6 images. When I looked on the back of the camera I had a Fox in each one, success at last! A couple of the shots weren’t bad, and allowed me to play with exposure and flash power etc to hopefully get some better ones. Over the next few nights i played with the set-up etc, and every now and then I got her in frame, but not always perfect focus. I changed the set-up from looking up the ridge to the den to looking over a fallen tree nearby, where i had seen her go over on occasion, and put a bit of cat food or road kill out to keep her interest up, but nothing great for the next few days. And then something amazing happened. On the 20th of April it was a lovely evening with some late sunshine filtering through the trees, and I went about setting up the camera set-up ready for the night which usually took about 15 minutes. As I was focusing the camera on the tree, i glanced to my left at one of the den outlets, and a Fox head appeared and looked all around like a tank commander from a turret! I froze to the spot only about 5 metres from her, and she hopped out, had a sniff around, looked me in the eye and slowly walked through the trees and then came out towards me on a game trail through some nettles. She then stopped and had a good look ...