Ardnamurchan the rest of the best

Here are some of the pictures I took on the Ardnamurchan trip. The weather was to say the least,  abysmal. I traveled up on the Sunday, it poured with rain all day long. so the late afternoon was a complete washout photographically speaking. The light was poor and anything with an once of common sense took cover from the rain except me.

I was staying at Resipole which is between Strontian and Salen. The locals have been seeing otters there for the last few weeks just after first light. Monday dawned I was on the beach at Resipole Bay at fist light, The light was very poor but I didn’t have to wait long as the otter came along about 150 metres off the shore, it was diving for food and obviously didn’t catch anything as moved through quite quickly. I shot a few frames but the are very poor. Take a look at the best one

After a couple of hours of waiting I moved on to Glenborrodale and the car park overlooking Camas Nan Geall, which is a particularly beautiful beach. This is the place where the white-tailed and golden eagles are seen most on the peninsular. It seems to be an area that raptors congregate. I climbed up the hill behind the car park to get some elevation,  as I waited for some thing to show the sun shone for a while. Buzzards came into view, there was a total of six, one of which came quite close to me overhead which gave me an opportunity to get images of it as it passed.

I sat and watched for a while the buzzards performed quite well albeit  too far away for photographs. Just before I returned to the car a kestral flew into sight and passed quite quickly.

I moved on passed Loch Mudle and spotted some little brown birds flitting around on the roadside. I stopped for a while to take a look and some images. I sat under a small elder tree and waited for the birds to come closer. The species were stonechat, pied wagtail, meadow pipit and a little further back came a pair of wheatears. Goldfinch came along and started feeding on some thistle heads,  by this time the light had deteriorated.

I moved on again to find one of my target species, the red deer. It is rapidly approaching rutting time which starts at the end of September. I moved down to Breahouse which is down the valley leading to Branualt. This is  favored spot for red deer to collect and there was quite a large herd of red deer hinds present with a single stag, he was a twelve pointer (twelve points on his antlers) and he has collected his females into the valley ready to beat off any young stags who might come along to take his hinds.