A few days ago I used the excuse of an airport run to spend the morning at Ludo to photograph the Osprey that I’d seen the week before. I waited around 30 minutes before one turned up, followed soon after by a second Osprey that joined it to hunt for fish.
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I take a camera along on my Dog Walks to bring you some of the sightings that I see on my morning walks, these photos are rarely going to be great quality as its hard enough keeping an energetic Dog entertained and get close enough to anything. They also help me identify where species are so that I can plan to return.
This mornings Wally walk was different, Emma (my better half) is visiting the UK, so after dropping her at the airport we headed to Ludo right at the western end of the runway for a walk.
We saw many species of bird life as you’d expect from being inside the Ria Formosa park. The biggest joy was watching an Osprey searching for food. It was around an hour before it finally swooped down and caught a large fish, unfortunately, well out of reach of the camera.
I did manage to grab this shot of her, I think it’s a female due to the large size of the body.
I was near the large lake at Quinta do Lago a few days ago when I decided to re-position myself. I collapsed the tripod, but the lens cover over the end of my 500mm and lifted over my shoulder to walk. I looked to the distance and saw a huge bird approaching. At first, I thought it was a large Gull but it swooped down quickly and I soon realised it was an Osprey coming in for a fish.
I had no time to get the camera ready as I watched it hit the water, just 10 metres away, with a loud thud before lifting away with a large fish. It flew across my path towards the late afternoon sun which had began to set.
I quickly grabbed the camera, set it down and managed to fire off a shot of it silhouetted against the sunset.
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