Roe deer in early morning mist
27/5/2010
I'm a sucker for backlit mist - I just the ethereal quality and transient nature of it especially at sunrise. I also love roe deer, so combine the two and its a perfect love match. Well not quite. This is not quite there but it's the kind of image that I'm always trying to capture when we get these conditions. With good numbers of roe deer now browsing out in the fields and marshland close to home there's always a chance of a classic encounter. If only the weather was as predictable.
Swallow alighting at pond
17/5/2010
The swallows in the wood shed have completed their nest and should be laying eggs this week but another pair are nesting in the farmer's barn and have been down in the garden collecting nest material and mud over the week-end. This morning was still and bright(ish) so I set-up to try to get them landing - very much a hit and miss affair with only an occasional hit. In fact just this one.
Spring swallow
14/5/2010
OK, so spring has arrived. In fact the swallows that breed in our wood shed have been back a few weeks and began nest building in earnest last week-end coming down to collect mud from my 'photography' pond whilst we were out planting potatoes only a few metres away. Couldn't resist another a go at them once the snow melted.
Did someone mention Spring?
12/5/2010
If we hadn't enough snow this winter there have been further flurries this week and a biting wind. I heard somewhere that it was Spring elsewhere in Britain but that is not a concept with which we're familiar in the Highlands as this shot taken this morning testifies. At least the daffs are out now!
Infernal volcano
6/5/2010
Having 'robbed' us of our hard-earned savings, Iceland has now set itself on fire spewing tons of black volcanic ash in our direction and grounding half of Europe's air fleet costing businesses billions of pounds / Euros in the process. Not only that but what has become our given right to travel to virtually anywhere on the planet should the fancy take us has also be robbed from us. It's all so inconvenient! I should not perhaps be so frivolous - there is a serious side to this - farmers trying to make a living under Eyjafjallajokull's ash cloud have suffered crop damage and livestock has been affected but in the grand scheme of things this is not a huge eruption. Eyjafjallajokull's neighbour, Katla is ten times larger - and when she blows we could all be living under a dark cloud for very much longer.
When the dust finally settled I hopped on a plane and headed north just to see this thing for myself. On arriving at Eyjafjallajokull I was struck by the vast array of irregular chunks of ice, some the size of a small car that had been blasted from the glacier and carried down to the valley by a potentially life-threatening 'tsunami' of melt water. The immense power of this 'small' volcano was very evident as black ash continued to belch from the guts of the earth to the accompaniment of an ominous low bass roar.
Yet it wasn't until dusk that the true beauty of the volcano was revealed as huge lava rocks were spat out from the crater sending orange arcs across the darkening sky. I sat mesmerized by this seemingly otherworldly phenomenon taking 30 second long exposures almost continuously (using everything from 21mm to 500mm) until 1.00am by which time the northern skies had finally darkened and I could no longer feel my feet.
Yet it wasn't until dusk that the true beauty of the volcano was revealed as huge lava rocks were spat out from the crater sending orange arcs across the darkening sky. I sat mesmerized by this seemingly otherworldly phenomenon taking 30 second long exposures almost continuously (using everything from 21mm to 500mm) until 1.00am by which time the northern skies had finally darkened and I could no longer feel my feet.
