Outdoor Ontario

Photography => Ontario Birds => Topic started by: Dinusaur on September 10, 2014, 06:47:36 PM

Title: Osprey double kill
Post by: Dinusaur on September 10, 2014, 06:47:36 PM
What's the odd of photographing an Osprey fetching two catfish from a local pond? Very slim I guess. I was just plain lucky to get the shots below. Within a four week period between August and Sept in 2013 and 2014, I photographed about 60 Osprey dives; 45 of which came from one pond last year. Nineteen times I have seen them coming out empty-taloned. And only once did I see this. Though Ospreys are enjoying 68% success rate of fetching a fish from our local ponds - getting two in one dive is not an easy find - my stats says less than 2%.

(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3922/15193898902_c45f8ce9fb_c.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/60250038@N02/15193898902/)
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3877/15007698767_0b8e6e05f4_c.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/60250038@N02/15007698767/)
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3850/15193887542_b15b6f130d_c.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/60250038@N02/15193887542/)
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: wanchan on September 10, 2014, 06:50:03 PM
Great Shots !
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: Howieh on September 10, 2014, 07:27:16 PM
Phenomenal! These are, by any standards, deserving candidates for wildlife photo(s) of the year. Good luck where ever you enter them!
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: Dinusaur on September 10, 2014, 11:12:05 PM
Quote from: "Howieh"
Phenomenal! These are, by any standards, deserving candidates for wildlife photo(s) of the year. Good luck where ever you enter them!
Thanks for your kind words Howieh.  I have no intention of entering it anywhere; I just do it for fun and share some of them with the readers of this forum where I learnt a lot about birds and birding in general. Oakbank introduced me to Ospreys - I am hooked now. There are no other ponds like Oakbank; however, while scouting local area storm water ponds you may get lucky with something like this as it happened in my case.
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: Brian Bailey on September 11, 2014, 06:37:19 AM
Wow! I've never seen that.  Did it manage to hang on to both fish?

BB

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Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: mac1958 on September 11, 2014, 11:45:05 AM
Great shots. Glad you decided to share with us.
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: Rotarran on September 11, 2014, 12:40:56 PM
Haha nice! What a prolific fisher that guy is.
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: gary yankech on September 11, 2014, 06:35:28 PM
great shots!
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: Dinusaur on September 11, 2014, 08:14:47 PM
Quote from: "Brian Bailey"
Wow! I've never seen that.  Did it manage to hang on to both fish?

Good point Brian. The last photo I took when he was about 50 meters away and still holding both fish. It was 56th photo of the series. However, shortly afterwards we did notice something falling off. When I looked at the bird I could still a fish dangling. Mind you at the time I didn't know that he had two fish to begin with. I only came to know about this when I reviewed the pictures afterwards. It is very likely that the bird let one fish go. The whole thing lasted about a minute between the time he hit the water and this last photo was taken.
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5588/15211537382_3287a58b55_c.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/60250038@N02/15211537382/)
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: MEGHAN on September 12, 2014, 02:17:24 PM
excellent series!! The last one of the origional 3 is super nice!
Also, now you know why you sometimes see Osprey over fields...they are searching for the fish that got away.
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: BoboBird on September 13, 2014, 02:10:26 AM
Great shots Dinu.

Now tell me (being the stat guy that you are) what are the chances of him doing it again?

 :D  :D  :D  :D  :D
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: paul_reeves on September 13, 2014, 09:06:34 AM
Really nice series.
Title: Re: Osprey double kill
Post by: annie on September 13, 2014, 09:03:07 PM
Wow, those are just awesome shots!