The Outer Hebrides - Part Two

Lady Anne Wildlife Cruises

Along with photographing Short Eared Owls ( The Outer Hebrides - Part One) I had planned two trips out with Lady Anne Wildlife Cruises. My thinking was that by doing two trips I would maximise my photo opportunities and also safeguard against missing a trip if one was to be canceled. That turned out to be a pretty good plan as the first trip was indeed cancled due to high winds. A replacement trip was quickly offered later in the week, so no photo opportunities were missed thankfully. Day one was very wet but calm and we saw lots, day two on the other hand was a lot brighter but more windy so sightings were a bit less. This is often the way wildlife photography goes, you are completely at the mercy of light, weather and just the chance of even getting a sighting of anything. If it was easy it would be less of an accomplishment when you do get an image. I can highly recommend this trip. The Nye and Rosie were very friendly and knowledgable about all of the islands and wildlife we saw. We even had a fantastic encounter with juvenile white tailed eagle circling the boat at one point. A great trip which I shall be returning for next year.

The Outer Hebrides - Part One

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to North Uist in the outer Hebrides. After an epic drive taking us up from Dumfries and Galloway through some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine we arrived on the Isle of Skye to catch a ferry across to Lochmaddy, Uist. After a very long journey our beautiful grass roofed holiday accommodation in North Uist was a very welcome sight.

Our accommodation

SHORT EARED OWLS

My plan for the week had been mostly to focus on finding Short Eared Owls to photograph. I had heard of a couple of locations in the area which would be worth a look so I planned an early rise the next morning and headed out to see what I could find. I was in luck, my first morning out gave me my first sighting. I spent a couple of hours watching this beautiful owl hunting. The light was difficult to begin with and a couple of heavy rain showers were thrown in too. I don’t think bad weather is always a bad thing, it can add some fantastic atmosphere and a sense of the true conditions that the wildlife has to survive in.

For the rest of the week I saw short eared owls every day. Often in poor light and often at too much of a distance to actually get good photos. It didn’t matter though, because I just loved watching them and enjoyed the moment without even lifting the camera. Whilst driving around looking for owls I managed to see so many deer, white tailed eagles, kestrels, buzzards, curlews, lapwings, amongst so much other wildlife. I saw many male and female hen harriers at a distance and I was desperate to get good shots of them but it wasn’t to be, well not this time anyway. Uist really is an amazing place and we have already booked to go back. These pictures are from the rest of the week at various locations throughout North Uist. Whilst we did have some short visits next time I hope to spend a little more time exploring Isle of Benbecula and Southern Uist.

It has been a while

It has been a while since I last posted here. Over the last few years for various reasons life has been getting in the way of my photography. I have found it hard to dedicate the time I wanted to getting out and finding new subjects. I did still go out with the camera when I could but nothing like I used to. My social media presence died a death due to not posting so often, not helped at all by Instagram locking me out of my swwildlife account. Apparently when I signed up I used .com on the end of my email rather than .co.uk by mistake, so I am now unable get the account retrieval emails to reinstate it. After a frustrating month of trying to resolve it I gave up and changed the name on a dormant account to make it my new wildlife page. My new account is swwildlifephotography if you would like to go check that out, please do and give me a follow whilst you are there. Starting again on Instagram is hard as I feel like I am posting into a big black hole where nobody actually gets to see any of my posts. The algorithm has changed to favouring videos rather than stills photography but video has never really been my thing. I do this for fun so I am not looking for a massive following, just to be able to post my photos and be able to reach more than a handful of people which is what is happening now. I have no idea how to grow my Instagram account anymore so if anyone has any tips and advice which doesn’t involve just posting videos please comment and give me a clue as I am a little lost on this one. Regardless of my Instagram woes I do want to give my webpage more attention going forward. I have more time now and have recently had a big house move to up to Scotland, exciting times. I have lots of new places and subjects to explore for my photography now. My webpage is long overdue an update so I shall probably be making a few changes here and there too. Hopefully you can follow along to see where my photography takes me next. In the meantime here are a few images taken from a recent trip to the Isle of Mull.

Isle of Mull Otters

In July I decided to take my self on a solo trip up to the Isle of Mull for a few days of just photographing otters. Otters have always been one of my favourite species to photograph and it had been a while since I had had any decent sightings. I have been to the Isle of Mull several times over the years and have had very mixed success spotting otters. Being known as a bit of an otter hot spot I think it is easy to take yourself to Mull expecting to see an otter around every corner but that really isn’t the case. I have spent many hours driving from one spot to another waiting and watching only to return to my accommodation empty handed and feeling deflated. Often, if I do get a sighting it will be too distant or in very poor light. That is the way it goes with wildlife photography, but it is that which makes it all the more thrilling when you do get a good encounter. Those few good encounters become addictive and keep you going back for more. This trip was more successful though. These pics are of the same otter taken over a couple of mornings. I got to lie on the rocks in front of this otter for at least a couple of hours on both mornings whilst the otter hunted, fed and slept without it ever noticing I was there. It was such an awesome experience and one I hope to repeat soon.