Feb '08
Welcome to the February news letter and our new look website. I hope you enjoy looking around the new galleries and pages. As it is new any feedback on usability etc is more than welcome.

Announcements:

Loch Visons wins another award best
e commerce business of the year

Follow on Experience
Brand new and very exciting weekends and days out are now available.

Guests
Gallery page of guests from 10th of October 07 to 15th November 07 have been uploaded. Great shots, well done to all!

Stories and pictures:
The reason for the delay to this months newsletter is due to location work I was doing in the Cairngorm. Hares are only one of three native British mammals that go white, the stoat and ptarmigan being the other two. As a result in the depth of winter up in the Cairngorm plateau they are almost perfectly camouflaged. Surprisingly when there is a really good hardened covering of snow the hares are much easier to spot than when it is broken heather. The feeling of elation when you finally clamp eyes on one that you have not scared away is sublime. Out of all the time I spent there only 3 days bore fruit, partly due to weather but also due to pot luck. I was fascinated by the fact that some hares let you creep right up to them, literally metres away while others, even though you are doing exactly the same thing, won't let you get even with in the same ball park. So it is all about spending enough time on the hill to get that lucky hare that will tolerate a relatively noisy approach from a clumsy photographer.

Eventually the tactic worked and I started filling the can with some shots. The thing that impresses me most about these magnificent animals is their speed over the snow (see thumbnail). Spending most of the time asleep or eating, one would of thought, wouldn't be the best training for this athletic master. But the minute it is required (unfortunately usually when I get spotted) the hares are off at an incredible speed, only pausing briefly to see if what has scared them really is a threat.

One night, around 3 in the morning the whole valley exploded with flashing lights, I jerked awake petrified, convinced Aliens had finally landed. Turned out it was just the police making sure I was alive and not there the next day as a massive weather front was moving in. Gutted I left the hills and took refuge in the local village, luckily the residents were very understanding and let me photograph garden birds at their feeders thus not wasting the beautiful snow.

Embarrassingly the going got so tough that I walked myself to a stand still on a few occasions (when the snow was just too weak to hold my weight). When this happened I ended up going to the local ski centre and photographing the very charming snow buntings (see thumbnails). You do get a few strange looks from the skiers mind you.

On the last day my big lens totally steamed up, out came the wider angle. Luckily the weather was perfect for snapping hares in their glorious environment (see last thumbnail). Coming off the hill with the sun setting over the mountains and the hares coming alive for the evening feed, all I could think was 'magic still exists'.

Archive
Jan '08

All wildlife experiences, wildlife photography holidays, wildlife tours, wildlife photography courses, and wildlife images only feature wild animals in Scotland, no captive or semi feral animals are used