Michaela and I spent Saturday at Rutland Water hoping to catch a glimpse of the Osprey before they begin their migration.
The weather was fantastic over Rutland Water, we met our niece and Nephews, Lizzie, Alex and Tom with mum Jane at Egleton Nature Reserve near Oakham, they live near by and we thought it would be nice to make the most of the good weather and spend the day at Rutland.
The hope was to see the Osprey, which after the help of Anglian Water and Leicestershire / Rutland Wildlife Trust are beginning to establish themselves around Rutland. We had to make our way to the South Shore and after a short walk to Manton Bay, we were rewarded. Although a long way off, we were able to view a young Osprey and adult at the nest site.
I really had to push digiscoping to the limit, the Osprey was just a brown blob with binoculars, but after using the full 68x zoom of my Olivon scope and 3x optical zoom of my camera, even with the large amount heat haze, I have been able to capture a worthwhile image of the Osprey (pictured above).
Other highlights of the day included the sighting of a Turtle Dove, again, the bird was a large distance away, but I pushed the scope to its maximum zoom limit and got a shot. Click here to view. Other sightings included Egyptian Geese, Little Grebe and Lapwing.
On the opposite end of the scale, I used the 1cm macro lens of the Ricoh GX100 and took a close-up shot of a Rosel's Bush Cricket (pictured opposite), which are found only in Eastern England. It was great spending the day with the children, they loved having a go at digiscoping, and took some great shots of Lapwing and Heron.
Rutland taught me that it's worth pushing the limits of digiscoping as much as possible, rather than just the memory of seeing the Osprey, I've now got an image record of the day.
For more information about the Osprey Project at Rutland Water, visit www.ospreys.org.uk
