May 2012: Male goldeneye on loch at dawn | |
May is traditionally a good month in Scotland both for wildlife and for weather and still misty mornings are a regular occurrence. Last year however, was an exception and we battered and bruised by strong winds and heavy rain after one of the best April's on record. This spring so far has been the reverse and most of April was a right off limiting my usual dawn vigils for black grouse to a single morning. But as high pressure reined at the end of the month and the first week of May it brought with it some classic conditions of mirror calm lochans. We are well blessed here in Strathspey with photogenic lochs many of them holding breeding pairs of goldeneye along with a sprinkling of slavonian grebes, an increasing population of little grebes and common sandpipers by the dozen. So a visit to one of the local lochs at dawn is quite likely to lead to something of photographic merit whether that is an atmospheric landscape or a bird within the landscape. It is almost impossible to plan such shots as so many aspects must come together to make a composition that works and although small in the frame, the main subject has a vital role to play but so do the surroundings and the light. This goldeneye was loafing around on the far side of the loch but as it began to drift towards a group of silver birch I could see the potential for a picture and composed the shot for the trees and then waited for the bird to move into the space between the two prominent birch trunks.
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