The main task for the whole group today was photographing six bird of prey species.  Beforehand, myself and three others went looking for red grouse in a spot that we have done before.  We found one pair amongst the heather on the way to the location and after spending a couple of minutes stalking them we were going to jump back into the van and carry on.  Luckily, Anthony spotted a grouse another grouse sat atop a fence.  We got low and stayed along the fence line which allowed us to get quite close.  

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​5 minutes later and we were photographing the next pair of red grouse.  In total there were around three pairs in the area and so we had a fair amount of choice of which to stalk.  By the end of the session (just over and hour) we had found a pair which didn't mind us being too near them.  We (three of us) stalked them and got well within 10 metres, which gave us images like these!

Below - (c) Ellie Bearcroft

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​As I said at the top, the main task was photographing the captive birds.  The species we had to photograph were; Golden Eagle, Goshawk, Peregrine, Kestrel, Eurasian Eagle Owl, Barn Owl.  As you can see from the group picture below.  As you can see from the group shot, we had varied backgrounds to shoot the subjects on.

The golden eagle is a stunning bird, using the trees and grasses around you can be a great way to not only show the viewer some habitat, but also help conciel the jessies.
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After we stopped for a lunch break, the kestrel came out and it was arranged to sit on a grassy bank around 10 feet above ground level.  It was a really good idea to have it up this high because we could frame the bird with long grass in the foreground and hide the jessies whilst having a blue/white/green background from the sky and trees.  I would say that the kestrel was the most active species, constantly moving around.  Which worked great for changing backgrounds between frames, but it made it less easy to compose the image as the previous species had been.

Below - ​(c) Ellie Bearcroft

Thanks for reading, feel free to check out the galleries of the other photographers that are in this blog:
Jasmine Beveridge - www.jbeveridgewildlife.weebly.com
Ellie Bearcroft - www.ebphotography95.wix.com/elliebearcroft
Anthony Slocombe - www.anthonyslocombephotography.weebly.com

Unfortunately, there wont be a blog tomorrow as I am in a hide overnight and so there won't be any time to write it.  I'll write tomorrows blog on saturday on the way back to Falmouth, so look out for that!

We headed up Ben Rinnes today, to look for ptarmigan and mountain hare.  Before that, a group of three were photographing red grouse in the morning.  They were very lucky to have a grouse within two metres of them for a good half hour.  At first it was apprehensive as they usually are, however the group left the van and the male started becoming quite territorial.  After sitting and waiting for a while, the grouse came very close and the guys managed to capture some great images.  

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At 11 o'clock we left the cottages for Ben Rinnes and made the summit at 13:30.  On the way up we spotted some mountain hare and ptarmigan, but waited until we reached the top and ate lunch before stalking and photographing the subjects.

It was a task I set myself to try and make use of the snow fall in images.  To do that I was using a slightly slower shutter speed than I would typically.  This was shot at 1/80th of a second, to give the snow some movement and add context to the subject.
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We spotted roughly 10 mountain hare  from the summit to the top of the mountain.  As there were 10 of us the stalking of the subjects was difficult but we managed to get within 15 metres, which allowed some 'in habitat' images like the one below. 

Below I am going to create a few galleries of the other photographers' work from the trip so far. There has been little time to edit and so I will create more extensive galleries after the trip.
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Others Galleries

Eleanor Hilsdon
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Richard Winter-Alsop
www.rjwaphotography.co.uk
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As promised yesterday, I have edited some of my red squirrel and ptarmigan images.  I've placed them in a gallery below for you to browse!

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Now, on to todays shoots!

We left the cottages at 5 o'clock to make Loch Morlich for sunrise.  The cloud was thick and only displaced slightly for about 5 minutes which gave a nice warm light to the clouds, however I was photographing mainly panoramic format to capture the mountains, forests and their reflections.  As you may imagine the post processing on these files takes a little longer.  I have a couple to show you below, however 

There are a couple more which are currently being edited and these aren't finished, but I thought I would give you an idea of some images.  

After the Loch, we travelled to Inverness to an area which we thought there may be some otter activity.  One was spotted a few hundred yards out but it wasn't for long.  However we walked around the area just to see what we could find.  I captured these two swans in flight, above the water which was incredibly still and giving great reflections.

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The final stop for the day was a red kite feeding station.  For around 20 minutes we had three kites in the area flying across a background of pine trees which provided some great contrast against the red kites' colours.  The added benefit was that at the distance they were feeding, you started to introduce some of the trees.  I like how they came out as I am a fan of showing the subject amongst their habitat.  Anyway, here's a couple of pictures to end today's blog!

​Thanks for reading and I'm sorry for not posting much yesterday, but I hope this made up for it!

There's no break today to be able to edit and write a blog and so this is being written between locations and unfortunately the only images are phone shots of the locations and backs of cameras.

This mornings sunrise shoot was for red squirrels! Myself and Anthony headed out to be setup at 06:30 and then wait for the sun to rise and the red squirrels to emerge. It was 7o'clock when the squirrels came out, but the light was a long way away from being at its best (just after 8).

Here's a shot from the back of the camera of a red squirrel.

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The main task for the group today was Ptarmigan on CairnGorm mountain.

We have a few phone shots to show you the amazing views and some of the Ptarmigan images that we managed to capture.

​The images are those of; Myself, Jasmine, Gail, Ellie, Emma and Isabelle. Please find the first blog if you wish to look at there personal portfolios, there's some great work over there!

Once again, I apologise for the lack of images on this post. If I have to time to write one tomorrow, then I'll make a section for today's images before.

Thanks for reading and stick around for tomorrow's blog which will hopefully have edited images!

I'm afraid there won't be too much writing on this blog, as it's quite late and I'm trying to post this around the time I promised!

The first sunrise seen from our cottages and it was stunning.  There was some great colour at first light (which I may have been asleep for), but I managed to get up just in time to get the morning light hitting the fells opposite.  Using an ND 6 stop on 70-200mm and D800e, to have a shutter speed of around 10 seconds and a very high resolution final file (150mp).

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For two hours at 07:30 we found red grouse and used the mini-bus as a 'hide' to get close to the subjects.  

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After each arriving back from our morning shoots (some doing red squirrels, others black grouse etc), we all headed out to Loch Garton in search of crested tits and landscapes.

It started off positive!  We heard that a crested tit had been visiting the feeding area only ten minutes before we arrived, however it was quite a wait for it to return.  After an hour or so it was back, but with only a couple of fleeting visits before a few of us went for a walk through the caledonian forest.

This was one of my favourite captures - there are more, but I'll save them to post another day.  Shooting these small birds on a full frame camera (even at 500mm), I am still having to crop to around 50% unfortunately.  

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So; Red Squirrels, Black Grouse, Red Grouse, Crested Tits and loads of other small birds made for a great morning.  The final stop of the day was at Loch Eilean.

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Other's Galleries

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Anthony Slocombe
 www.anthonyslocombephotography.weebly.com

Thanks for reading - I hope you're all enjoying the updates and thank you for all of the shares, likes and comments!

It's day two since we left Falmouth and the final leg of the journey is complete!

 We left Burton service station at 06:00 in order to make it to our accommodation for 15:00.  On the way up we make one stop at Bruar waterfalls, a stunning waterfall system in a Larch and Scots Pine forest.  
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(We took the opportunity to get a slightly better group photograph than yesterday)

 
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As you walk up the falls you first reach a small stone bridge which makes a great focal point for landscapes.  As most woodland scenes are the area is fairly dark, pair this with the fast moving water and heavy cloud that we had today and long exposures were the obvious choice.

At the moment I don't have my watermark available as I'm on a new laptop, therefore I'll be posting these image very low res and non-expandable, but don't worry because they'll all be posted separately once I get back home.

​The final subject we found were, common frogs. There were approximately 10 frogs within a small few metre square pond off the side of the track, which were great models that didn't mind lenses being stuck in their faces.  With my lack of a macro lens, I resorted to my next best option, my Nikon 200-500mm F/5.6E which has a minimum focussing distance of 2.2 metres.  It may seem like another plug for this lens but it performed awesomely once again!

Thanks for any likes, shares and comments!

​The annual trip to Cairngorms National Park in Scotland is underway!  

The first day is spent travelling from Falmouth up to a Travelodge at Burton service station and then the final leg of the journey is completed tomorrow. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce some the photographers on the trip and give you the option to check out their portfolios.
There are 11 photographers from the course who are on the trip (including myself); however not all have online portfolios. I have listed those who do and feel free to check all of them out; there is fantastic work to be seen on all the sites!

Isabelle Price - www.isabellepricephotography.weebly.com
Anthony Slocombe - www.anthonyslocombephotography.weebly.com
Richard Winter-Alsop - www.rjwaphotography.co.uk
Gail Forest Harland - www.gailforestharland.com
Ellie Bearcroft - www.ebphotography95.wix.com
Jasmine Beveridge - www.jbeveridgewildlife.weebly.com

Those without a website (whose images you may see over the next week) are Toby Cowell, Megan Houseman, Elle Hilsdon and Emma Kirk. If you see any work by these photographers that you have any questions about or are interested in, then send me a message and I can give you their information.

I'll be writing a post at the end of each day, probably going live at around 9pm. The blogs will be a run-down of the day, the photographic activities and the images captured (if time allows). As it is not only me on the trip, I will have a section at the bottom of each post that the other photographers can post in; so look out for that and stay attentive to the image credits as they likely will not only be mine!

Thanks for any likes, comments and shares!