Ron McCombe's Wildlife Photography Blog

North Uist Otters, Outer Hebrides

Ron McCombe — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:32:32 +0000

Another of my target species here on North Uist is the Eurasian otter. I must say I didn’t really expect to get many images of them and none very close at all.

I had spotted an otter and her cubs in a small loch quite a long way away from the road on Balashare Island amidst the machair. I watched for a long time frustrated that I couldn’t get pictures of them playing in the water. There was no cover around the loch and a number of fences would need to be overcome, getting close to the loch wasn’t really an option.

The loch wasn’t very big and I started to think that they couldn’t stay here very long and that they would want to move on. I looked around and found a deepish drainage channel holding quite a bit of water running out of the loch so I went to have a look at it, and sure enough there were otter footprints in the mud along the channel. So I set myself in a position to get a good look should the otter decide to travel along it to move to another of the lochs on Balashare.

After a couple of hours of watching the otters just disappeared, and eventually appeared just up the ditch from where I was waiting. They came within 30 metres of me when they spotted me and just sat. I managed a number of pictures before they saw me, so I decided to move off leaving them to go about their business and to avoid them being stressed by my presence.

Here are a few of the images as they came towards me.

Eurasian Otter and Cub

Common Snipe North Uist Outer Hebrides.

Ron McCombe — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:45:04 +0000

This is another of my target species for this trip, the common snipe. I don’t see too many of these where I live so to get to grips with them here is refreshing for me. I find that a very early start is the way to go here, the birds seem to take a siesta during the day and come out again in the evening. Dawn is around 03:30am and the light is decent at 04:30 which is just about the time I spotted this snipe. There is something about the early morning light which I like in particular, it gives a soft mellowness to the colours which I find pleasing.

The light can be a problem with high ISO settings giving noise on the pictures, but not with the Canon 1Dx, this camera was built with this low light photography in mind. ISO 1600, generally 1/500sec f5.6 in the early morning light, giving impressive results. It adds sunshine to the day.

Here are a few images from this early morning session

Common Snipe

Corncrake Near Balranald RSPB North Uist

Ron McCombe — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:41:38 +0000

I have just arrived on North Uist and on day one went in search of the illusive corncrake. I expected to spend a day or two looking and finally getting pictures of one. But I must be lucky or something, I heard this one calling when I was sitting having a cup of coffee and a custard cream. It was just under the car window in a patch of butter-burr. It sat and called for a good number of minutes giving me plenty of time to get theses images. My first target species of the my stay here on North Uist.

Corncrake calling

Corncrake

Corncrake calling

Corncrake

ossprey

Ron McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:32:52 +0000

ospreys

Ron McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:22:54 +0000

ospreys

Ron McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:18:00 +0000

Osprey fishing

osprey

Ron McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:15:48 +0000

Osprey fishing

Osprey Aviemore Scottish Highlands

Ron McCombe — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:35:34 +0000

I am on my way to North Uist for a few days and I took a small detour and called in to Aviemore to see an old friend of mine Gordon Macleod who runs a hide in Aviemore to photograph the amazing Osprey fishing. I met him at 04:45am and went into his hide and waited, and Gordon came up trumps again as he usually does as the birds performed quite close.

Here are a few images from this morning.

If anyone is interested in taking images like this, I am running two workshops in Gordons hide in July and August, you can get details here

Osprey fishing

Black grouse

Ron McCombe — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:01:12 +0000

Black Grouse

Black Grouse on the Moorfoot Hills

Ron McCombe — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:49:06 +0000

I had thought I had missed the black grouse lek due to the flu I had through April. But a game keeper friend of mine phoned me knowing my situation and told me that the lek was still going on although not as vigorously as in April. So I went to see him and erected my hide on the black grouse lek. We set it out where we thought the best position was and left. I returned that night at around 11:00pm and went in to the hide. I slept in the hide until around 3:30am and set up my tripod and camera with my 500mm lens. The grouse came to the lek around 4:00am and I could hear them calling in the dark. It was a windy night but a clear one and eventually it came light enough to get some images around 5:30am. The birds performed reasonably well, they didn’t fight so much, and I needed to be there a month earlier to see the lek in full flow, but I was pleased to get a chance to get these pictures after I thought my chance had gone for this year

These are a few of the images taken early on Wednesday morning.

Black Grouse