Romsey Ospreys

A few years ago, if someone had told me I would be standing here photographing a 4th spring passage Osprey this year fishing in Romsey I would have said "I wish". Despite the continuing loss of land to housing and industrial estates in the locality, the odd area continues to boom with wildlife, my only concern being whether this perception is just an effect of squeezing both individuals and species into an ever declining suitable space.
However, there are times to just enjoy the wondrousness of the natural kingdom and its inhabitants and the last couple of days have been such times. Most spring passage Ospreys are in a hurry to get further north to their breeding sites, even across to Scandinavia, and just drop off for a quick fish here and there, but every now and again one hangs around for a while further south, non breeding birds who decide not to travel any further when they have a good supply of food where they are. Below is possibly one such bird having been here for 4 days currently. It will probably prove me wrong and disappear tomorrow.

Both times I have arrived in the morning I have been greeted with this sight, an Osprey with a fish heading off to its favoured distant perches for a leisurely breakfast where it has sat, if not molested by Crows, Rooks and Great Black Backed Gulls, for several hours.
The long waits have been enjoyable in their own way with noisy Kingfishers hovering out in the middle for sometimes several seconds before diving for fry. Sometimes I wondered how I failed to photograph one in focus, but I did. Three  pairs of  Great Crested Grebes have also been entertaining, one pair treating me to the full weed dance yesterday, another pair apparently have young though I haven’t seen them yet, and there are many territorial threats and battles to admire.
Eventually hunger or boredom got the better of the Osprey and it came out to fish and the shots below are all of it impressively hawking around for a suitable meal. After watching it sat for several hours, any time it stretched or flew its wingspan came almost as a new surprise

The shot below shows what I thought to be a broken primary on the right wing. The following day I thought there must be a new bird as it didn't show this fault, but on closer inspection the primary has just crossed over its neighbour part way down the shaft.

Like I suspect a number of the local birders who feel this area is their local patch, I often feel very protective of it and sometimes almost resent other people coming to look at it. However, quite a number of birders came to the small gap to view the Osprey and Hobbies and one thing I really got a kick out of was when even hardened birders were lucky enough to see it flying quite close, there was usually a collective "wow!".  And that is fitting, for it most certainly is a bird with the wow factor in spades.

When perching up to survey the water for meals Ospreys always seem to select the very thinnest of twigs at the very top of a tree to sit in. For a bird with a 6 foot wingspan, landing on these points is no mean feat and obviously requires total concentration

Even sorting these claws out when landing must take some doing. Ospreys have four equal toes, the outer ones can be opposed to point forwards or backwards for perching or carrying fish respectively.

This is a Carrion Crow for size comparison. Quite a brave bird really!

Air brakes on and into a hover to check out the lunch menu

Almost overhead and gliding at full stretch that wingspan would impress anyone

In a dive for fish the tail seems to be used as a brake and is cocked right back.

It is quite an imposing sight, and I wish I could have photographed the conclusion, but it always seems to take fish from behind a row of trees where autofocus cannot follow and manual focus fears to tread. Lunch captured it was back to the distant perch for a few more hours.....