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Life Lessons From an Incompetent Osprey
You’ll miss 100% of trout you don’t dive for
It was 8pm on a cloudy Scottish evening.
I’d been sitting in a hide for the past three hours (six if you include that morning), watching an osprey try, and fail, to grab a fish.
With daylight dwindling, time was running out for both of us — if the osprey didn’t catch anything soon I’d be going back home without any good shots, and it would be going home without dinner.
Strangely, the osprey seemed reluctant to commit to a dive.
That morning, it had only made one attempt, coming close but losing its slippery catch as it flew off.
The rest of the time it would take off from its favourite perch and circle the lake, getting my hopes up, before returning to the same tree without so much as dipping its toes in the water.
I’m not a raptor body language expert, but I could see the osprey was getting in its own head.
Was it second-guessing its fishing abilities? Perhaps it was too shy to perform with a few telephoto lenses pointed in its direction?
