1) One opportunity that I missed was last summer(2005), I'd spent a large part of my summer holidays sitting in a hide beside a pool near where I live that Osprey's sometimes fish at. This was about the 10th time I'd been up; and so far I'd seen the Osprey's plenty of times but the weren't fishing so the only pics I had were flight shots. Anyway I was sitting there looking out of the front window of my hide, when I turned and looked out the side window and saw and osprey sittins on top of a small tree less than 20ft away at the same height as me. As I slowly tried to turn my camera around it saw me through the camo netting watched me for a few seconds and then just as I got the camera up; I pointed it towards where it sat and began to focus when it flew away....I was absolutely gutted
2) This missed opportunity was up in my local hills last winter. I spent pretty much every Saturday between January and April trying to photograph Ptarmigan and
Mountain Hare with some success. However on this day I was stalking a male and female Ptarmigan that were unaware of my presence some 15ft away(good stalking or luck??
) when all of a sudden the cock displayed to the hen beside him(I was laying on the snow with my camera on top of my beanbag) just as I clicked the shutter I slid about 2 ft downhill and got a picture which wasn't even distingushable as a pair of Ptarmigan in their winter plumage!!! Again I was gutted as this would have been a great behavioural shot.
Fergus