Scottish autumn (wildlife overview)

Hi all,

A few days ago, I got back from Scotland. I had a brilliant time up there. I was only there for four days but I still saw plenty of wildlife. The weather was good most of the time so it allowed me to get out.

Because of the good weather, there were beautiful scenes across the firths. We stopped at the cromarty firth. While there, I managed to spot a variety of birds, primarily waders and wildfowl but you could also see dolphins breaching in the distance. Because the dolphins were so far away, I didn't manage to get a shot of them but I did take a lot of landscape photos (which I don't normally do) including the one below.

The next day, a sea mist settled in so, while it wasn't bad weather, it wasn't particularly good weather either. The sea was very stormy that day so there weren't many birds near the shore. There was however, a few snow buntings and a flock of sanderling and ringed plover. The shot below shows the flock flying over the waves that day.

I also photographed this wagtail at the beach.

I didn't do any photography the next day but the day after, I went to the Tollie red kite feeding station near Dingwall. There was lots of activity with plenty of kites, buzzards and ravens coming in to feed on the food put out. This is a selection of my favourite images.

I didn't do anymore photography beyond then as the weather started to get bad. I hope you've enjoyed the post and the accompanying photographs. Have a great half term everyone.

All images © Samuel Aron

Richmond park deer

Hi all,

Yesterday, I got up at 5:30am to drive into London to photograph the deer there with my friend Josh. It was a brilliant day and there were lots of great opportunities for photographing the deer. Although the deer rut hasn't quite kicked off yet, we saw plenty of roaring stags and youngsters practicing their technique which they can hopefully use later on. The red deer were very easy to approach and I was able to come within 3 metres of a roaring stag. Even the stags with their females were fairly easy to approach, although I did back off when the stag came towards me. Unfortunately, there was no morning mist or strong enough light for using fast shutter speeds so we were mainly exploring and trying not to get chased for the first hour at the park. There was a group of low-flying gees that flew right under the sunrise.

Canada geese at sunrise

After very little success in this part of the park, a walk down to the playing fields saw that we had much more.  This Fallow buck ran right in front of us.

Pacing Fallow Buck

The stags with the females were very difficult to approach but there was a small group of stags on their own which were incredibly easy to approach. These deer didn't mind our presence, nor the loud buzzing sound of a man out with his remote control helicopter. At one point, two pairs of the stags started to practice fight right in front of us.

Practice

We stayed there for a while and then moved up to the woods. It was at this point, while eating a sandwich, that I saw a huge red stag coming out of the bracken right behind us. We came with metres of this deer and I was able to get this shot of it calling.

Call of the wild

After this stag had left, we contemplated going to the other end of the park to see if there were any deer in the bracken. However, we decided to stay where we were as we could hear many roaring stags close-by. Because of this, we were able to get quite close to a small group of young stags sitting on a grassy patch. These stags also presented many opportunities.

Black and white red

Yuck!

I decided to move on as there was a roaring stag surrounded by does around 200 metres from where we were. This stag, despite being surrounded by females, was very approachable and, quite frankly, wouldn't shut up. It was brilliant. He was always roaring (not necessarily at me) and showing off.

Intruder

Calling stag

Watching doe

Phone snap

It was nearly time to go home after this so we decided to hang around the car park. Luckily though, there were three stags just sitting there next to it. At this point I only had 10 photos left on the final memory card and both my batteries were almost depleted so every shot had to be timed well. I kept approaching the deer by crawling on the ground. I eventually got within 3 metres of the closest deer. I was able to get close-ups of the head and the stag roaring.

Stag portrait

Bellowing

Calling out

After that, I got in the car and went home. It was a brilliant day and I can't wait to go back there again.

All images © Samuel Aron

Scotland... again. (wildlife overview)

Hi all,

Went to Scotland a few weeks ago for the second time this summer although this time, it wasn't just a long weekend. This meant that I had more time to photograph the various species.
To start off, on the way up to Brora, we stopped off at Loch Garten to photograph the red squirrels. To be honest, it looked like I would end up unsuccessful as it was raining. After spending around 15 minutes in the visitor centre to avoid the rain I went out to photograph the squirrels. I found them immediately. They were chasing each other up and down the trees. There were two different squirrels that we saw in our time there and they both allowed me to photograph them.
The squirrel below was more dominant than the other and was the one chasing.

And here is the chasee.

On another day, while walking the dogs along a beach, I came across a large pool of water in which terns and gulls liked to fish. Here are a few shots from that walk.

No trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to chanonry point. There was much more activity than last time.

On a few early mornings, I got up and went down to the local stretch of beach to photograph its grey and common seals. It was an amazing experience, being so close to wild grey and common seals. There were moments where I thought I would scare them away but I did eventually get close enough to photograph them. Here's a few of my favourites from two of the early morning sessions.

Thank you for looking and I hope you have had a great summer.

All images © Samuel Aron

Scotland-Part 3/Handa Island

Hi all,

For my last full day in Scotland, we went to Handa Island as the weather was due to be good. For those who do not know what Handa Island is, it is one of the largest seabird colonies in Scotland. It has a large range of wildlife including Skuas, Terns, Puffins, Red grouse, Otters and much more.
By far the easiest animals to see are the Skuas. They have both Arctic and Great skuas. It is easy to get close to them without them being disturbed. However sometimes, if you get too close, they will attack, especially if you are near a nest.

You can see most of the skuas when walking through the island. The path through the island takes you to the main seabird colony, around what is known as the Great Stack. Here you can see puffins, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars. The Puffins are usually quite far away so it is difficult to photograph. I did manage to get quite close to a razorbill though by lying over the edge of the cliff. Here you can see it yawning.

Here is a calling fulmar, also near the great stack.

Carrying round the Island, we saw plenty more species but the main highlights of the day came towards the end... when we were running out of time on the island. We were nearing the beach where you get the boat back to the mainland when my Dad said 'STOP'. He said that we saw a duck sized bird run across the path. I thought about this and realised that what he saw was a red grouse. And that is what was just around the corner. Unfortunately though, it ran off into the bracken where it was next to impossible to see. While my dad walked on, I stayed back to try and get a shot of one of these birds. I edging closer to one red grouse walking out of the ferns and took a few pictures. However, little did I realise that there was another red grouse crouched down in the heather right in front of me. I saw it before I stepped too close and managed to get some photos. After taking a few shot, I backed away slowly so I didn't make them fly away.

I carried on to the beach until I came across a great skua feeding on a dead rabbit. Sure enough it flew to a point where it could watch us carefully. I carried without stopping, just in case the skua thought I was going to steal his food. When I got to the beach, I was just about to sit down when I saw what I originally thought was a guillemot out at sea. I took a few shots as I hadn't got a decent shot of a guillemot yet on that day. I took two shots and reviewed the shots. However, on closer observation I saw that it wasn't a guillemot or even an Auk. It was a red-throated diver! My first ever. This persuaded me to brave the cold sea. The bird wasn't phased at all by the 14 year old wading through the water towards him so I was able to get some nicely detailed images.

If the diver wasn't enough, the great skua from earlier had brought its prey to the beach to feed on, just a little further along the beach.

When the boat came, we asked if the driver could take us closer to the diver. The driver didn't mind and neither did the diver! Unfortunately though, we got to a point where the bird was strongly backlit and my closest shot of the bird didn't come out very well. But oh well, not much we could do about that. So  the next day we went home. It was the end to a great weekend in Scotland. I was so happy at the end of the trip. Even more pleased that I'm going back there at the end of the Summer. :P

All images © Samuel Aron

Scotland-Part Two

Hi all,

One thing me and my dad like to do when we go to Scotland is try out a new walk. So on the second day, we went on one of the Rosehall trails near Lairg. It was a really nice day which, eventually, turned out to be a problem. The nice, warm weather bought out the Cleg flies. These were constantly biting and it was horrible! We were relieved of the flies only when we got to an area of open heathland. Among the heathland were loads of dragonflies. Even saw a golden-ringed dragonfly which was a first for me.

 Here's one of the nasty little Cleg flies on the windscreen of the car.

At the end of the day, we decided to go and get fish and chips in a nearby village. The mountain towering above the village was beautifully backlit so I decided to photograph the gulls flying around the car park in front of the backlit mountain. I even managed to get a shot of a black-headed gull with the duke of Sutherland monument in the background.

All images © Samuel Aron

Scotland-Part One

Hi all,

Just got back from a weekend in Scotland with my dad. Had a great time and saw lots. I also photographed lots so I have decided to write 3 posts so that I can show you all my best shots and tell you about all of my adventures. I will do a new post every day for the next three days.
So, part one, we arrived at inverness airport around midday. This meant that we had time to go somewhere while we were there. In the end, we decided to go to Chanonry point as it was along the way. When we arrived at Chanonry point the weather was nice but for a minute or so, there were no dolphins until two started breaching right in front of us. It was so unexpected and I wasn't prepared at all! I managed to catch a close-up of one of the dolphins before the moment was over. Seeing them breach so close to the shore was amazing. After that, we saw plenty more dolphins but none of the views later could compete with the views we got at the beginning.

We saw plenty of other wildlife at Chanonry point including cormorants, arctic terns, gannets and gulls.

One such gull, a herring gull, decided to go fishing and got two bites. His first bite was a nice crab and the second one was a starfish. I knew it was the same gull by the featherless marks on its face.

Once we had visited chanonry point, we carried on with the journey and took a ferry across the cromarty firth. This took us to a nice beach with a small pier out to see. This beach was also the fishing grounds of many arctic terns and gulls. I managed to get a backlit shot of a tern against the pier.

Not bad for the first day.

All images © Samuel Aron

London wetland centre 2

Hi all,

 Yesterday I went to the London Wetland centre again with Josh. It was much better than last time and the weather was amazing. We decided not to go to the southern end as last time there weren't many photographic opportunities so we didn't bother.
 We didn't actually spend much time in the hides. Instead, most of the time spent there was around the little pools and river. To start off, we found a juvenile green woodpecker in a tree yapping its head off. It was fairly easy to get close but not easy to get a picture through all the branches.

 There were also a number of dragonfly and damselfly species that we found there. Including a first for me, the four-spotted chaser.

Then came the highlight of the day. The common tern. It had a favourite little pool which it returned to every five minutes to fish. Very close to the path as well. You could take wide-angles!

All images © Samuel Aron