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The Pohtiolampi Osprey Centre is situated in Huutijarvi about three kilometres from Kangasala in Finland and offers the best opportunity to photograph Ospreys away from the nest anywhere in the world.  It is located on a working fish farm but one shallow, sandy pool is stocked with trout and left for public viewing or photography.  The Osprey Centre is about a 30min drive from Tampere airport and arrangements can be made so that someone picks you up at the airport, the other alternatives include taxi or car hire.  Accommodation at the centre is limited to two apartments whilst the nearby camping site apparently has some accommodation.  The main three-man photographic hide also has a bunk bed and some photographers stay there.  Most meals are taken at the on-site cafe, but on arrival you visit a local supermarket and stock up on goods.

Cafe and shop at Pohtiolampi Osprey Centre, Finland.

Main photographic hides - bottom right.

At the centre, there is a public hide which is excellent for viewing but too far away for photography.  However, one tower hide and two other hides have been constructed purely for the use of photographers.  These need to be booked well in advance e.g. by November for a date in the following August.  However, the staff at the Osprey Centre do not speak English and will not answer emails.  Consequently, most photographers book and communicate via the very efficient Leena at www.finnature.com.  Finnature do not charge for this service.  With luck you will get a five-day slot.  The cost for the use of the hides is 120 Euros per day and the apartments are approximately 50 Euros per day which includes a breakfast, or in our case a very late breakfast following a morning session in the hide. 

We tended to enter the large three-man hide at about 0545hrs just before the birds started arriving.  The Ospreys initial burst of feeding takes place at dawn, well before the sun is up.  At this time, we often  found that the best images obtained were atmospheric, low shutter-speed ones.  We quickly found out that the critical factor controlling our photography was the direction and strength of the wind.  If it was calm the birds would come in from any direction.  However, they nearly always came in facing into the wind, so with the hide situated on the south-southwest side of the pool if there was a wind from a northerly direction the birds dived with their backs to us.  During our stay we never had a southerly wind which would have been ideal.  Whilst I remember, there is a power source to the main hide which is very useful for charging batteries, laptops, making coffee or even listening to the radio.  Around about 1100hrs we took a break for a couple of hours.

From the hides at the pool the best lens was clearly the 300mm F2.8,which I used all the time without a converter.  Dickie also used a 70-200mm f2.8 at times in conjunction with his 400 F4.  Ideal lighting conditions here are overcast to bright overcast, by the time the sun has cleared the surrounding trees it can be rather too harsh. 

Tower photographic hide.

Front view of main photographic hide - takes 3 photographers.

The tower hide offers the best opportunities for flight images of the Ospreys as they wheel over the pond.

Towards the end of August, the number of birds visiting the pool increases and one day we had around 100 dives.  I believe the group that came after us had even more dives per day.  Photographically, the background in places is far from ideal and this will ruin some of our images.

Since there is little else to do at the centre, we made our way back around 1300hrs and stayed until about 1800hrs or when long shadows stretched across the pool.

Images from trip can be seen under GALLERIES