HEATHER LOOKING GOOD, WEATHER STILL CHANGEABLE

 

Mountain Hare sitting pretty in pink

The weather here in the Cairngorms is still on the unsettled and changeable side. Any sunshine seems to quickly disappear, replaced by cloud. Nice, pleasant temperatures though. I'm happy with 16 C in the Strath, rather than 40-50 C in Southern Europe, no thank you.

The beautiful Golden Plover, in Ling (Caluna Vulgarous).

The Ling Heather ( Caluna Vulgarous) seems to have bloomed quite a bit earlier this year. A really colourful addition on the moors and hills of Scotland, especially in the Cairngorms. It's been nice trying to capture the  wildlife with the heather has a background. 

Cloudberry fruits ( Rubus chamaemorus) and heather

Looking forward to the  brighter conditions and heather in its prime around mid August, hopefully with a lovely mountain hare posing.

LAST OF THE PUFFINS & UNSETTLED WEATHER

 

Puffins and sand eels

For (probably) the last time this season I was out photographing the adorable Atlantic Puffins on the beautiful Isle of May. There are numerous boat companies that go out every day to the Isle of May, the two main spots where they sail from are Anstruther and Dunbar. These are extremely busy during the 'Puffin Season@ which is mid April till the end of July. You almost always have to book your place a couple of weeks in advance. Doing this you are at the mercy of the weather of course. Bad weather and/or rough seas can cancel te trip or you are photographing in dull and wet conditions. I took a chance last a couple of weeks ago and booked a day trip on the Tuesday, I tied this in with a visit to family in Liverpool.

Plenty of Puffins!

On my journey back from Liverpool I stopped off at Dunbar and was on the cruise from Dunbar to the island with the excellent Blue Wild boat tour. Wonderful folk, Alan and Amanda on board offering a friendly, informative and safety conscious trip out.

Dunbar Harbour

Dunbar is a lovely wee town to visit

The weather forecast for Tuesday was not looking that great. I just missed the nice spell of settled, sunny and clear weather over the weekend and the next few days looked very unsettled with low pressure systems drifting in off the Atlantic.

The magnificent Bass Rock

Looking at the weather forecast right up to the day itself looked ominous. Thundery downpours just at the time when we were due on the Isle of May. Oh well. That's the luck of the draw. We departed .

Dunbar, Alan informing us it was a bit rough out on the waves. The excellent RIB could cope no bother

The shots I was after!

A trio of Puffins

No sand eel too big for this guy

We had 3 hours on the isle, all in beautiful sunshine! Brilliant. The Isle of May is not only about puffins of course. There is a wealth of other seabirds to see including Razorbills, Guillemots, Eider and Arctic Terns. Unfortunately the Arctic Terns never bred this season, they arrived in their hundreds but left shortly after, the staff on the isle (managed by NatureScot) didn't know the reason. Strange that this occurred.

Guillemots

I came out for probably my last opportunity to capture the iconic image of the Puffins with sand eels in their beaks. It's an amazing sight to see, a single bird collecting and carrying more than half a dozen sand eels in their beaks. This period in their time on land they are feeding up their chicks (Pufflings) which are in the burrows and normally unseen. They have just a short few weeks to get them fed and grown enough for the Pufflings to fly out to sea. It must be exhausting work for the adults, constantly fling out to sea and finding food several times throughout the day. The sand eel is the Puffins favourite and most abundant 'catch'.

I was more than happy with the thousands of Puffing images I shot. A great end to my season photographing these amazing wee birds. By the end of this month they will all be gone from our shores and back out at sea where they spend the majority of their life. I'm certain I will be back again in April for their arrival again. If you want to see these iconic birds for yourself then I personally recommend The Isle of May and the Isle of Lunga the finest places in the British Isles to see them.

Back closer to home and the unsettled these continues. Sunshine, showers and thunderstorms almost every day. Yesterday our planned trip up Ben Rinnes was shelved and instead we played safe and had a wildlife day down at the coast, at Spey Bay.

Unsettled conditions over the Northern Cairngorms

Ling Heather ( Caluna Vulgarous) coming along nicely

Nice afternoon light

Spey Bay Swans, before the lightning!

Osprey, after the lightning!

Summer berry time, wild raspberries

Succulent Cloudberry fruits

MOUNTAIN HARE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSOP

 

My recent mountain hare who I've been photographing last couple of weeks

Monday 3rd July

Wife & hubby team, Alison & Brian have flown all the way from Seattle in the USA TO photograph the beautiful Mountain Hares. That's how good these gorgeous animals are!

We had a top day out and the afternoon in particular was brilliant. 2 hours with one fabulous wee hare who did some wonderful posing including a good stretch and yawn then moved over to an area of heather to pose for some seasonal background colour.

Great day and a nice couple of folk.

Another top day with my local Mountain Hares. This latest wee character I have been seeing and photographing over the last couple of weeks is just wonderful. He sits at his regular form but also very active nearby, munching away on the abundance of greenery at this time of year. He is easily identified by the obvious markings on his right ear.

July & August are my least favourite months of the year. Often dull, poor and flat light (like today), midgy, poor air quality and far too may folk about. Having said that the flowers are beautiful just now. We are just getting the first of the heather showing through. The Ling will be at its best around the mid to late August period. I always enjoy framing the hares with the purple heather in foreground and background. One of the many reasons I love spending so much time with the hares is there ever changing pelage as we go through the seasons and their beautiful surrounds in their environment. Of course winter is by far my favourite season. It won't be far away.

In the heather

Hi distinctive markings on the right ear

I've updated my Gary Hodgson Photography website recently. There are a couple of new, multi day wildlife photography holidays, including a fab 5 day holiday on the beautiful Isle of Mull. I have already taken a few bookings for my Winter Mountain Hare Photography Workshops. Hugely popular last winter, they made up about 20% of my winter work..

The changeable weather has brought some welcome rain. We've had some lovely evenings here in Strathspey after a wet day or two. Last week I was up on the high Cairngorms. A pleasant day up in the high Cairngorms today. Some nice spells of sun and just a short shower. Much cooler than of late which is my kind of weather.

Top day guiding on a wildlife photography workshop. We got a fine hour with an high altitude mountain hare ( I class the high altitude hares when they live above 1100m). We spotted a few juvenile chicks, Snow Bunting, Wheatear and Meadow Pipit. 4 male Snow Buntings also on the list.

High altitude mountain hare, Cairngorm plateau

Juvenile Snow Bunting

Adult, male Snow Bunting

Thursday 28th June.

The magnificent OSPREY.

GARY HOLDS A SCHEDULE 1 BIRD PHOTOGRAPHTY LICENCE issued by NatureScot

Part of the licence agreement is to record all my sightings and some of my images back to #naturescot at the end of the season. This is invaluable data for them, for monitoring and recording of schedule 1, Red Listed birds. Are they declining even further or are numbers of birds doing well and increasing?

The magnificent Osprey is one of the biggest success stories of breeding bird species in the UK after almost becoming extinct.

Ospreys are the second-most widespread bird of prey in the world, after the Peregrine Falcon, residing on every continent apart from Antarctica. Previously widespread throughout Europe, Ospreys were historically persecuted until their numbers were extremely low, resulting in their extinction as a breeding bird in England in 1847. Like many other birds of prey, they were targeted to protect livestock, but their population was also impacted through egg and specimen collecting. Despite remaining in Scotland for a while longer, their population reached such low levels that they were no longer recognised as a breeding bird, with the last known pair breeding at Loch Loyne in 1916.

Fortunately, Ospreys made a natural comeback in Scotland, with the first known pair setting up a territory and nest at Loch Garten in 1954. From there, the population slowly increased, with help from nest protection and public engagement initiatives, including “Operation Osprey” led by George Waterson, the then Director of RSPB Scotland, at Loch Garten. Despite these positive steps, populations remained low as egg-collection was still prevalent, especially as the Osprey eggs now had increased rarity. The population growth was further slowed through pesticide use, including DDT, which affected the quality of the eggs laid by the Ospreys. Only after harsher consequences for egg-collection and the ban on DDT in 1972, did the Osprey population in Scotland properly make a comeback, and by the 1990s there were over 60 pairs.

There are now Ospreys nesting in England and Wales too. Things can change, with big efforts and the general public's awareness onboard.

This particular pair of Ospreys that I have been observing for some years haven't (unfortunately) produced any young, to my knowledge. But every season they return and rebuild their nest, always in the exact same location. Wonderful. Maybe one day they will have youngsters.

Evening is my favourite time to go down and have a look at them, the sunlight being in the right direction. Wednesday was a lovely evening after some rain.

All images taken from a safe distance and cropped heavily.

My local Osprey