February 2010- Swans

I took this photograph last weekend at an urban loch, these are fantastic places for wildlife photography. Most of the wildfowl are very used to people and allow a close approach and often come looking for food, this presents many opportunities for photography, in this case I used a wide angle lens to capture a group of mute and whooper swans waiting to be fed.

January 2009-Shades of Winter

Wow, what a winter it has been! During my lifetime there has not been a winter like this, in Perthshire where I live the snow had been with us since before christmas and now in mid january it is only now slowly melting away. I've taken more photographs over the christmas holidays than I've taken in the past year! I've got quite a few photo's to go through now... this is one I chose for my picture of the month, something quite different from my usual style as you'll see. Nevertheless I hope you like it. Happy New Year to you all!

December 2009- Bullfinch

I took this photograph just a few days ago in my back garden, we have a large rowan tree at the bottom which is covered in berries. This has attracted my different species including mistle thrush, fieldfare and of course bullfinch. With temperatures below freezing a hard frost had formed over most of the tree and the berries, it made the perfect setting for a nice christmas image. I particularly liked this photo of a male bullfinch; the eye contact and the frost give the picture atmosphere which is something I always strive to capture in my photographs.

November 2009- Redshank and Grey Seals

The waves were crashing along the shoreline littered with pairs of grey seals on this scottish beach, I'd spent hours on this remote and windswept coastline as a winter storm rolled in off of the sea. From my hiding place I'd photographed many fights and witnessed countless pairs mating. Ahead of me a pair of seals were fighting in the surf when I spotted a redshank flying along the shore, by complete chance it landed directly in front of me and the seals. In just a few seconds I managed to take this photograph before the redshank exploded off of the beach noticing all of the aggressive behaviour surrounding it.

October 2009- Shag Portrait

Walking along a beach in Northern Scotland a movement just a few feet away caught my attention. Sitting on the sand was a shag, the bird seemed totally fearless and sat watching me; I took a couple of photographs from where I stood before backing away. I'm not sure if this bird was ill and therefore unable to fly or if it was just one of these animals you come across from time to time that just doesn't perceive you as a threat. Either way I didn't linger to risk putting this bird under any unnecessary stress and quickly moved on. I hope that this bird wasn't ill, however, I tend to think chances are it was, either way this photograph has a story to tell...

September 2009-Fighting Gannets

This was a photograph I took at the end of a short holiday up north. I'd been photographing some Gannets on the cliff when the partner of one bird suddenly landed; the result was tense faceoff with the neighbouring family.

August 2009-Roe Doe

I spotted this doe feeding on young birch trees in this woodland glade one evening. I approached carefully trying not to spook it, in this photograph it looked in my direction having heard the sound of the shutter firing in the previous photograph.

July 2009-Fishing Osprey

This photograph was taken late one evening, I saw the osprey diving out of the sky and quickly tried to focus on where I thought it would enter the water. Fortunately as it flew out of the water I managed to lock on with the autofocus, however, unfortunately for the osprey it was unsuccessful.

June 2009- Guilliemot amongst Thrift

Last weekend I spent a day with my family by the coast, as always I took my camera with me in the hope of taking some photographs.

This was my favourite image from the day; I often try creative shots when I'm taking photographs, I look at colour and shape, trying to see an element to give a picture an edge, just that little something different. In this case looking through the beautiful pink thrift to this bridled guilliemot.

May 2009-Yellowhammer in Blossom

After coming home from school a few nights ago I sat at my bedroom window and tried to get some photographs of our resident yellowhammers sitting in our cherry tree. Unfortunately the blossom has now passed and is starting to fall, however for those couple of days when it was still a fresh white I tried to take advantage of it.