Gadgetory

I love photography and I love wildlife so what better way to combine my passions down with a photography expedition where I would hopefully learn what it takes to get great shots of brilliant creatures like the Osprey pine marten and the elusive red squirrel armed with some of the best photography equipment around my trip would take me six hundred miles from down here in London right the way up the country to the kangan's National Park in the heart of the scottish highlands stopping off of course at the TV services farm shop for some really rather excellent biscuits after about nine hours of driving it's time to get familiar with the cottage so there's a car outside of course in the rain safely in the rain nice kitchen we have a living room with sofas and chairs whoo lovely conservatory in here we're right in the middle of a forest here as well chickens downstairs bedrooms single bed and a desk looks like here is the Reuter so this bed is where I'm going to get the strongest signal strongest being the operative word because of course they has strongman Popeye on the bed school like twister by myself and look at all these VHS errs scotch VHS is JVC and Memorex got here BBC's Pride and Prejudice on VHS ha stairs lovely bedroom ensuite two single beds bathroom another twin room where they like a goose and a Care Bear and some sort of psychedelic elephant so there we go there's the upstairs I might use the upstairs it has occurred to me slightly that the guy staying alone in a cabin in the forest is a horror movie setting which has been really rather overdone I'll be fine I guess I hope in order to be prepared for any photo situation that might occur I brought a big stack of equipment with me look at it all counts 6d 5d 3 wide-angle lens macro lens Sigma 150 to 600 male canons massive well as a Canon isn't it my 72 208 gets a carbon fiber tripod to keep everything still so I'm up got coffee it's 3:30 in the morning I've got to meet the photographer at four o'clock where we're going to go and then get into his hide and hopefully find some off sprays he did tell me last night over the phone and there is a chance that's because we've had a lot of rain the hide might actually have been flooded in which case if we go in it we will drown it is horribly early in the morning it's not quite daylight outside yet and this is seeming like less of a good idea than it did last night given that only had about maybe two hours sleep I'm off to a hide next to a lake in the nearby town of every more little more than a ditch in the ground this hide will hopefully let me get close-up shots in the Ospreys without them being alerted to my presence I've been in here a couple of hours now the light is terrible so I'm having to use all four settings so my shots aren't coming out very well we've had a few birds trying to grab some fish from the lake that they're not doing a great job of it and I've not done a great job of capturing them which is a disappointment the weather's only getting worse it's raining fire it is which means it's not only unusually dim it's just this horrible grey light there's no controlling when the bird show up of course so my morning involves a lot of waiting and waiting and waiting so far this morning this is certainly one of the best shots I've got maybe bit of who did it this guy see we've you know reasonably sharp on the eye but after you said sure I would normally slow shutter speed and the high ISO that it's just not that it's not great in the light it's just nothing like what I'd hoped it would be just two days ago the weather was completely different they had this gorgeous golden light it was bright should we some of the photos that people got from there and they looked stunning this lovely backlight to the birds pin-sharp great colors that's amazing it could not be any more different just two days later which is extremely frustrating because the weather forecast over the next few days doesn't look like it's gonna pick up so I think my opportunities for those beautifully lit dramatic shots are gonna be a bit limited also a bit too tall for this hide and I keep banging my head on these stress which hurts day one has been a disappointment to say the least the rain is still coming down it hasn't stopped all day I've been looking through the shots I've got nothing's particularly impressive and certainly nothing I'm even remotely pleased with considering how much effort I've gone to to come here in my head I'm already writing the story about how failure is okay and what you can still learn from this sort of vague with Riaan of the day I'm still expected to write this article with with paid plenty of money for me to be here in this cottage for a week I've got a I've got to write something tomorrow morning I'm heading to there is a cafe in the middle of a forest which has a good reputation for having a variety of different birds and red squirrels feeding right outside they know I'm going to be there from about five o'clock it's not even open until ten o'clock so I've got pretty much a full rein over the place and for a few hours before people start showing up so really hoping I can get some good shots there failing that my life line will be the hide I'm booked into on Sunday evening where I'm hoping to be able to get some nice shots of Badgers and pine marten but even then if it's raining that hard which it is currently forecast to they might not even show up at all so that could be several hours of me sitting in a box in the in the dark in the middle of a night for literally no good reason here's hoping the weather improves after a decent night's sleep I have another priest sunrise start but this time I'm off to a local cafe is known for his visiting birds and squirrels and for his cake I got some fair shots in the cafe but the poor light meant that nothing looked brilliant as I ventured up to the grass more it was clear that the weather was only going to get worse don't quite know what we're good to do our makers my fantastic it really is just awful there the rain isn't stopping at all it's freezing cold my hands feel numb I'm supposed to be summer Scotland and I greatly differ on our definition of summer the weather looked a bit brighter on the morning of day 3 so I went back to the hide for a second attempt to capture the amazing Ospreys on camera we've got better weather it's still a grape a little bit of light is much much better so I've already had some I bought had a few a few good shots coming out of nothing spectacular but so much better when I was getting the other day luckily my perseverance was paying off the brighter light meant I was getting sharper shots of the birds with the action nicely frozen that's a bit more like it with a good set of shots in the bag I went back to the Moors from yesterday to get some proper photos of the lovely red grouse what a difference a day makes though it's not raining it's not as cold there's a lot more why it's not getting much better photos I haven't got as many wildlife shots so far as I hoped I'd get so I kind of want to basically filled up like literally fill the blank pages the magazine with kind of anything of interest so I've come down to the side of the lake I found this nice line of rocks coming out which I thought would make a really good shot for a long exposure so I've got my lis big stopper filters attached on the tripod of course and I've got my remote release doing a bulb exposure about a minute to hopefully get some nice silky smooth water and maybe even some movement in the clouds although there's not a lot of wind so these clouds aren't moving all that much but we'll see what we get and the day just gets better and better the Sun came out and I was able to take off my three jackets I've been asked about all over the place I've been over at car bridge to do some long exposure stuff for the river tumbling underneath it and now I've parked up at the end of this trackway and I'm on my way down to lock var where I'm just more like fishing house that I've been told about which could may be some really nice shots and we may see some wildlife down there we may not it may just be about seeing the nature and getting sort of general landscape shots either way I don't mind because it's a beautiful place we're walking down skies blue sun shining it's going pretty well now it's amazing to think that this is Scotland not somewhere in Canada or somewhere else luxurious it's Scotland and yesterday it was checking it down with rain windy as all hell I couldn't get anything and today this it's now about half five I've been on the go a long time haven't really eaten so it's definitely dinnertime I think I think I've earned it the question is what to have beef I think beef steak two steaks it's for last evening this is Sunday today I've been out at the mountain which has been great I've been spending quite a lot of time actually going through all the photos I've been taking back in the cottage and now I'm getting ready to go to the Hyde's in the middle of the forest where I'm hoping to see some badgers and pine martens I've certainly got some decent shots of other things so far so it could be kind of like a nice extra to have if it works out got to be in there for about nine and I think usually expect to sort of be there until certainly past midnight if not two o'clock ish so it's gonna be a late one when I'm driving back to London in one go tomorrow it's about 600 miles so might be my needs I do a few a few strategic naps in service stations on the way so that I'm not too tired to make the distance but yes it's been a good a good trip wanting to hide I barely had time to prepare my equipment before the first pine marten family made their appearance very bad it's certainly about what's wrong we've got father's tooth you can see on the table so that really was incredible I I've been here well I've been here about 15 minutes the the guide had left the hide after and and within five minutes of him having left I look out the window and is four four pine martens already here already feeding I mean I thought I'd be waiting here a good couple of hours for I maybe saw one if there's any guarantee of them arriving at all and within minutes that's four there it's absolutely incredible and such a joy to see them this closes it really is amazing now I have just seen over the distance as a whole group of wild deer right I'd love to get some photos of those guys around here but I am somewhat stuck as it were in this hide if I leave now at any point even just a nip outside to go to the toilet I'll disturb the wildlife fell they'll hear the noise they'll get they'll catch my scent and I will mean that not only will they disappear now where they definitely won't come back for the rest of this evening the people who operate this height have to be very strict that once you're in you're in there are now four badges it's two outside here two on the other side so wherever I choose to stand gonna see the badges are just such amazing little things seeing them up close like this is um that's badger does not care though in this close you definitely see me I'm sure probably smell me as well become amazing sensitive smell but it's far too focused on the nets on the ground this batter is probably about a foot and a half from me look that's my hand the Badger is incredible so it's now 20 past 3:00 in the morning I'm just leaving the hide it's stupid early Oh super later suppose I should say annoyingly I do have a 9 hour drive to do today back to London but may have to have a bit of a sleep first it's been a good night though and well worth it got some great shots of the pine marten and the Badger both species put in great appearances 3:20 a.m. I don't know what I was thinking thanks to multiple coffee stops along the way I did eventually make it back to London in one piece I did learn a lot of important lessons on the way I can go to a stunning location we've some of the best camera equipment around but if the weather doesn't play ball and you're going home with nothing thankfully though I did have some success and it was because of the knowledge I gained from the local guides as well as my own sheer perseverance in battling through the elements that I thankfully came away with many of the shots when I set out to get you