So, after a couple of weeks back at work, and a decent weather forecast, I was keen to get out with the camera this weekend.  I agreed with a friend, Graham Ryland, that we would head north to my favourite area and just see what took our fancy by way of locations.  The result was a long drive around Wester Ross and south-west Sutherland, and we had a really good day out.

The above shot is perhaps a familiar one, although neither Graham nor I had managed to work out where exactly this view was taken from, until yesterday.  We had a wee rake around the back streets of Lochinver and eventually worked it out.  While it would be preferable to have a bit more dramatic lighting, or some snow on Suilven, I think it is such an excellent view, with the mountain looming large over the church, that it still worked well.  We will be back!

We basically visited the Achnahaird peninsula and then took the Inverkirkaig road north to Lochinver, dropped into the wonderful pie shop to get some pies for the family, and then up to the superb viewpoint overlooking the Assynt hills.  Then, finally in the late afternoon we headed home, via Loch Assynt.  The following shots are the best I managed to capture, and given that it was bitterly cold, with a strong wind, and the light was pretty flat and a bit hazy, the results are decent.

Today marked our dog, Broc's, 15th birthday and it was celebrated by a lovely walk this afternoon along the path to Leitir Fura in Sleat.  For 15 years old she is still energetic and enthusiastic about her walks, although she is happy to stay close by, and usually on the lead since she is almost deaf and can't hear recall commands.  As you can see from the photo, she still has a keen interest in what is gong on around her and a keen eye.  Happy Birthday!

The walk was followed by a late lunch at An Crubh, very nice as always, and then on the way home we encountered a magnificent sky, looking both eastwards and westwards, as the sun set.  Truly amazing pink clouds as you can see below.

So, after a horrendously wet and frequently windy end to 2024 the New Year has brought snow and some really lovely light this afternoon.  I took a short walk at Duirnish in the late afternoon and captured these images as the sun intermittently peeked through gaps in the clouds to the west.  The dramatic colours of the snow clouds was properly inspiring and I had a really enjoyable walk wiht my camera - a great start to the year.

I had an excellent day out to Glascharn in Glen Shiel, Lochalsh with Graham Ryland today.  It was not looking very promising when we arrived at Chocolates of Glen Shiel, with heavy overcast and rain.  However, a coffee helped, not least in allowing the rain to pass, and we avoided the temptation of chocolate too.  We headed off on the north side of the river along to the deserted settlement of Glascharn, a long-time objective for me.  It turned out to be a lucky day with a prolonged dry spell, with ever-changing light on the surrounding hills and the empty pastures, where once people lived.

Glascharn is one of those places where you know not many folk visit and while it is fantastically peaceful (apart from road noise form the A87 road on the other side of the glen) it resonates of a turbulent and tragic past.  There is evidence of a sizeable community that once lived on this spot and worked what is actually reasonably decent land, albeit pretty rocky, before being cleared to be replaced by Cheviot sheep, that still remain today!  There are some impressive stone walls, including the head dyke which is about six feet high, and another old dyke that heads directly up the slope, now surrounded by bracken, a sign of sheep grazing rather than the more traditional black cattle that would have been raised here once upon a time.

Many of the old structures are buried in this bracken which also reaches a height of around six feet in places, and is all but impenetrable, smothering all other vegetration.  Graham and I agreed that this site would very much merit another visit at the back end of the year when the bracken has died back.

There are a few lovely old alder trees around the site, mostly running along a burn that, while dry at this time of year, shows evidence of a substantial flow in wetter times.  Sadly many of these wonderful old trees are showing signs of dieback, with dead branches in their crowns.

The light was providing some beautiful opportunities for contrasting shadow and light patches, offsetting these trees against the hills really nicely.  These moments were very fleeting and some patience was required to wait for a decent image.

This delicate thistle drew my attention with a bright burst of vivid purple flowers against the otherwise largely green landscape.

On my way to Kintail in the morning I had a little time to spare so went via Carr Brae to see what the view was doing in the overcast weather.  It fortunately cleared away a bit and the view east to Kintail  was brooding and mooody with misty cloud hanging over the distant hills at the end of Loch Duich.  To the west, the light was very different with some blue sky and fluffy white clouds and much more vivid bright greens of the grass and the darker bracken and woodland.

These last two photos were taken with my camera on the Shutterspeed Priority setting by mistake and a high ISO as I was shooting birds last time out.  This caused a little bit of noise in the images and some weird camera settings! Just ignore that.

Last weekend we had a short trip to North Uist to visit friends and I took the chance to get out and do a bit of bird watching and photography.  In total I had 71 species of bird over the two days and I managed to capture the following shots of some of them.  The highlight was getting the one above of a short-eared owl sitting on a post watching me on Sunday morning.  There is a bit of noise as the ISO was quite high at 1000, but the early morning mist meant that the light levels were pretty low, so all-in-all I am pretty happy with the result.  Other bird highlights included seeing a corncrake, good views of corn bunting and a few black-tailed godwits.  I also had fleeting views of hen harrier, not good enough to try and get any photos though.

The good weather last weekend allowed me to get out a couple of times with my camera, firstly to Dundreggan on Saturday to visit the new Rewilding Visitor Centre, and then on Sunday for a drive around Strome and Applecross to recce a few sites I had not photographed previously.

Despite the decent weather I did not capture many good shots, more planning required in terms of tide times and light, but useful for recconnaisance purposes none-the-less.  That being said, I did capture these three images of old trees.  I never tire of photographing the old specimen trees that we find, often quite isolated in a generally over-grazed environment, but struggling to survive the combined forces of weather and deer and sheep.

The above shot is of an old hawthron tree at the shore in Applecross village.  It appears to be standing free on its roots, clinging to the gravelly soil of the shore.  No doubt this tree has survived through many a storm and its footing must be a bit precarious with shifting gravel.

The next two are old ash trees near North Strome above the shores of Loch Carron.  As a result of ash dieback disease these old trees are disappearing from our countryside at an alarming rate.  The nearby Rassal Ashwood, which was once a National Nature Reserve has the disease and many of the old trees there are suffering badly.  All very sad, but hopefully some will survive with natural resistance, and regeneration might be possible in the future - let's hope so.

The last few images are macro shots of some spring flowers captured at Dundreggan on Saturday.

And we thought it was spring a few weeks back!  Sadly the weather has taken a bit of a turn for the worse over the last week or so, with dramatic winds and frequent rain.  However, these conditions do sometimes offer up exciting and awe-inspiring light, ideal for landscape photography.  Yesterday afternoon provided just such a chance for me, with the two images below taken from our garden, overlooking Loch Alsh.  While the rainbow did not last long, at least not as bright as this, it was truly impressive for its short duration.  I am not sure I would have wanted to be at sea on a day like this though.

The following shots are of a couple of amazing iconic buildings from the Scottish Borders, namely the Hermitage in Liddesdale - a fine and imposing old building from Reiver days; and the Leaderfoot Viaduct which is a much more recent structure built for the railway to cross the River Tweed, near Melrose.

The above, and following shots were taken over the last week or so, including a trip north to Torridon and Gairloch, and today another trip, south this time, to Arnisdale, with a wee walk around the crofting townships of Duirinish and Drumbuie in bnetween.  I am not going to add lots of text, just a bit of a slideshow.

I recently took the decision to switch camera brands, moving from my tursted Canon to Olympus, specifically from full frame to micro 4/3 format.  The reason for this is pretty obvious, and I know I am not the only person doing this, and is all down to weight.  I was getting fed up carrying a massive heavy backpack of kit around, especially when trying to do wildlife photography. 

This post features some of my first images shot on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III camera over the last few days.  There have been a good few geese about and while they are not necessarily the most exciting species to capture, they do provide good subjects for practicing your field craft.

The first couple of shots (above and below) are of greylag geese, feeding on croft land at Plockton.  Shot with my new Olympus M. Zuiko 300mm f/4 Pro IS lens I have to say I am very pleased with the results.  Very sharp images and very fast auto-focus.  This format has a small sensor, half the size of the full frame Canon, so the 300mm lens equates with a 600mm lens on the full frame system.  This lens is roughly half the size and weight and has a wider aperture so is faster in low light - all good benefits for wildlife shooting.  The downside is the smaller sensor has lower resolution, only 20.4 megapixels compared to 30.4 on the Canon 5D Mark IV, but these days the sensors are so good that this is plenty of detail for my needs.

The next few shots are of Canada Geese captured at Kirkton Bay two days ago.  These are migratory birds in passage, heading north for the summer, unlike the Greylags that are more likely to be resident breeding birds.  We don't see many of these Canada geese here so it was lovely to get this opportunity to add them to my portfolio of bird species.

These shots were taken with the same 300mm lens but with the 1.4x teleconverter added, providing a total focal length of 420mm (840mm equivalent on Full Frame).  I was not sure how the teleconverter would perform, as it reduces the maximum aperture by one stop to f/5.6, and can slow down the auto-focus and reduce the image sharpness.  However, on the basis of these shots, I have to say I am very impressed with its performance and see myself using it a lot.

My final shot was grabbed as a pair of Greylags took flight, again at Kirkton.  I love the black and white tail feathers, and wanted to try and capture them in flight.  This was a proper test of the auto-focus performance of the Olympus system, and white it is not 100% sharp, I think the result was excellent.