More stags

Between Badanloch and the Garvault hotel this time.





One of these days I'll get up there in decent light...

Right place, right time

There are precious few places in the world where you can be standing on your back door step at 10 o'clock at night, letting your dogs out for their last sniff round the garden and listening to red stags roaring in the hills all around you. Since I'm lucky enough to live in one of them and I happened to be awake at half past six this morning, I thought I'd jump in the car and drive the big square from home to Tongue to Altnaharra to Syre to Kinbrace to Melvich to home again in search of deer.

I must have seen about 300.

Unfortunately many of them were at that time where it's dark enough for them to still be feeling comfortable near the road, but not quite light enough for the camera to get decent results. Still, by 9am the shots were getting acceptable:







Remember this guy? Look at the last but one photo in this post and then compare - I think it's the same stag and that missing antler is just the way it grows each year.



And then I found this chap, with a herd of 12 hinds. They were happy enough to let me photograph them for a while:



But after five minutes they decided they'd had enough and took off in the most photograph-friendly fashion you could imagine!







I just wish they'd done it in better light! I spent three and half hours driving around in the pouring rain only to get home and find sunshine...

A trip to Inverness

I prepared for this one. I got the big lens out and kept my camera on the passenger seat all the way down the Strath Halladale road. What did I see? That's right, absolutely nothing! Two buzzards, which were little more than pinpricks in the sky, and a hedgehog which had hidden in the undergrowth by the time I'd stopped and jumped out of the car.

So it was more in hope than expectation that I set out from my hotel room early the following morning in search of the dolphins that can often be seen from the sea walls. As it turned out, I got a bit lost and ended up at Carnac Point instead, which is just to the west of the Kessock Bridge. No dolphins (surprise, surprise) because the tide was too low, but I had fun watching this grey heron:



They're not the most aerodynamic of birds:



Preparing for landing:



Landing gear engaged:



Touchdown!:



I attempted an artistic shot of the Kessock Bridge - this was my best effort:



I went up the Crask road on the way back. I had my camera on the front seat again, just in case there was a spectacular sunset over Ben Loyal, but the long lens was in the back because I thought with my luck there was no way I was going to see anything. Wrong. This was a couple of miles south of Altnaharra:





It's the rutting season for red deer and this stag was walking his hinds up the hill towards another group. I couldn't see the second stag, but I could certainly hear him - the two were roaring at each other:





That was that, or so I thought - it was so dark by the time I left the passing place I was pulled into that I had my headlights on. But no, a few miles past Altnaharra I found these two young red deer - and this is where I thanked Canon for image stabilisation! These shots were taken at 390mm focal length with a shutter speed of 1/60th and the only support was my elbows braced against the car window.

Staggering

Today we headed down to Inverness so Mick could buy me some new walking boots for Christmas. The first decision of the day was which route? The A9 coast road (the longest distance, but the fastest road), Strath Halladale (medium distance, single track) or Strath Naver (shortest distance, very bendy single track). We plumped for Strath Halladale as a balance between miles covered and using a road that had been gritted and were glad we did. This is the view we pulled over to take a photo of:



Mick had turned to look at the view in the other direction and was making a strange stuttering noise behind me, which eventually turned into "Stag!" And so there was - a young red deer stag with his lady:



But nothing could have prepared us for seeing this, just 50 feet from the road:



There must have been 15 or 20 of them, quietly grazing, completely unbothered by us watching from the car.



One of them had lost an antler in the rut:



A bit further on we saw a buzzard by the side of the road, happily tearing a rabbit to pieces, but it had taken off by the time I got the camera out.

I dropped into Jessops in Inverness to have a look at the camera I'm intending to buy and see how it felt in my hand - I've held the next model up from the 50D and because my hands are tiny, find it awkward to hold, but the 50D is fine, fortunately :o) They had the 100-400mm L lens in stock as well and I asked if they could do me a deal if I bought both together. The ticket price was £1,850 in the shop and I knew I could get them online for about £150 less than that - or £250 less if I was prepared to take a second-hand lens in near mint condition. Unfortunately the best they could do was £20 off, so I thanked them for their time and left it.

Then onto Tiso, the big (and I mean big! It has a rock-climbing wall and several types of terrain on the floor for people to try out gear on before they buy!) outdoor shop on the outskirts of Inverness. I never thought I'd own a pair of blue boots, but they were the ones that fit best after I'd walked over their rocky path a few times and they have fantastic ankle support, so I've absolutely no excuse for not getting out and about with my camera next year!

We went back via Strath Naver, seeing another three herds of deer (mostly does, not near enough the road to stop for) and got up it just in time to catch the sunset: