Photo story by Alessandro Terzi - 27th October 2016

When I see the shot I made in the Scottish Highlands, where I take an osprey carrying a fish to his two grown chicks in the nest, I always think what ordinary people cannot imagine about the hard work there was behind this shot.

In fact, nobody can imagine how much learning and how much time I'm used to spend in nature before a possible realization a shot like that. To objective difficulties of portraying a bird so unusual you must add the typical problems of who is used to spend much time outdoors, that is:

• cold;
• rain;
• wind;
• low quality of light;
• incorrect position for a right shot.

In the backstage shot realized by Raffaella, it is pobbile to see my tierd and resigned face! In fact, during the shooting there were been a lot of problems, the following:

• Q1) about three hours spent hearing the bell of the two grown chicks but I never saw an adult bird nearby the nest;
• Q2) unknown adult arrival direction to the nest;
• Q3) a strong light so right for the birds details but very hard to control;
• Q4) two grown chicks so nervous, flying over the nest only for few seconds, but ever asking for food;
• Q5) only a small hole between the tree leaves even if I was using a 500mm lens, it was very hard to see the nest clearly;
• Q6) strong wind was moving leaves and the frame was not clear enough;
• Q7) an instable position as for the tripod as for myself so that it was impossible to see the nest through the camera.

to resolve these issues there were my solutions:

• A1) staying into the nature with calm and knowing that photography repays the patient man and the patience is the virtue of the strong;
• A2) framing the nest with a loto of space in the borders;
• A3) balancing the exposure for the skylight;
• A4) like in human beings society, also in the animal world, kids stay too much with their parents, exactly as our mid-adult men;
• A5) resign yourself that it was the best solution;
• A6) all we can do is hope, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed;
• A7) using the remote control cable, enabling the live view mode and monitoring the real scene for the whole time.

With all these simple solutions, after about three hous, an adult arrived to the nest with a big fish and shot after shot, even if with the usage of live view mode, I was able to capture this nature show.