Scotland June/July 2025

I show a small selection of the photos from this trip below, but for more of them go to my gallery of photos

For larger versions of each of the photos below, click on the captions.

In June/July 2025, we spent a week at Ullapool in the far north-west of Scotland. For the second week we moved to on the Isle of Harris, which was a new location for us. Afterwards we spent three nights in Aviemore with photo sessions at Aviemore Ospreys the main event. Dragonflies were also on the agenda with a brief stop at Loch Maree, enroute from Harris to Aviemore and an afternoon in the Aviemore area

Ullapool

For the first week of our latest Scottish trip we stayed in Ullapool which was reasonably close to Handa Island. I have visited this wonderful island several times in the past, going back to the late 1960s, although only once before with a camera, in 2013.  

Unusually, the weather was sunny and warm for our visit this time. The main draw for the photographer here is the Arctic Skuas that come very close when the marked track heads through one or other of their territories. 

It was good to encounter several pairs showing there has been some recovery from bird flu. 

I was carrying my 100-500 lens for this walk which had the advantage of being able to zoom out when the birds came in close, as one is doing here. Getting good shots was tricky though, especially given the harsh sun. I took several thousands on the island! 

A very close Arctic Skua! © Stephen Burch

Cruising past more distantly © Stephen Burch

Getting good settled shots was also difficult because of the harsh light. Also, although the birds sometimes perched on mounds, these tended to be into the sun and they frequently landed in the heather instead, as here.

Arctic Skua settled in the heather © Stephen Burch

There were also pairs of Great Skua around, but none we saw were harassing the visitors. I had only relatively distant views of them in flight, but came across of couple of very tame birds settled on the ground by the path.

Great Skua © Stephen Burch

Sticking to the path, it isn't normally easy to get close to Puffins. However this one was briefly right at the top of the cliffs, almost next to the path. It soon departed having been flushed by a passing Fulmar  that came very close.

Puffin on a cliff top ledge © Stephen Burch

Isle of Harris

For our second week, we took the ferry from Ullapool to Stornaway, and then drove down to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris. The bird photography here was less productive and the weather poorer. Although we saw plenty of both eagle species, none ever came close enough to be worth showing here. 

Early one morning, when the forecast was good, I took myself out for an early morning drive around to see what I could find from the car, or near to it.  This Red-breasted Merganser was remarkably obliging and swam right past me quite close in. 

A close Red-breasted Merganser © Stephen Burch

Shortly after locating the merganser (see above), I spotted this superb diver out on a loch. However it never came very close, and this is the best I could do with my "long-range" gear - the R7 with the 500mmf4 & x2 TC, which gives an effective focal length of 1600mm. 

 Distant Black-throated Diver © Stephen Burch

Aviemore

Last year, we had disappointing sessions at the now effectively discontinued Rothiemurchus Fisheries. Hence this year I tried the other nearby establishment - Aviemore Ospreys. Typically in the peak season (which July is definitely in), it was suggested that there should be up to about 10 dives a morning, compared with the single unsatisfactory dive last year, over two sessions! However when we were staying near Aviemore this year, it was very hot (near record breaking) with daytime max temperatures over 30 C! In these conditions, the Ospreys changed their hunting habits, and also for this first morning an aggressive, territorial male was driving off most other birds. 

There were only two dives, one very early when it was still almost dark and misty over the pond. The other dive was later, but the bird then flew away from the hide I was in, ruling out any worthwhile photos. For the first dive, the light was very poor requiring an ISO of 25,600! This, combined with low contrast due to the mist, meant the resulting image quality was very limited, even with the latest AI noise-reduction tools (DXO Pure Raw etc). Here is the only image from that first morning that had sufficient quality, in my view, to show here. 

Osprey with fish rising out of the early morning mist hanging over the pool © Stephen Burch

Fortunately I had booked two successive early morning sessions, which entailed starts at a very challenging 03:20! For the second morning, there was more wind and hence no mist, and the territorial bird from yesterday was not in evidence. Even so, there were only three dives that morning, with the first two again being very early in poor light. The last dive was much later, by which time the light was much stronger but pretty harsh, given the cloudless sky. Still with three dives, and with each lasting about 3 seconds, at 30 frames/sec, I ended up with a fair number of images to chose from.

Osprey holding the fish vertically early on the second morning © Stephen Burch

Here is image from the last dive taken in much better but quite harsh light. For several others see, my gallery.

Another Osprey dive - later in the morning © Stephen Burch

Dragonflies

1. Loch Maree/Kinlochewe

While travelling from Harris to Speyside, we were able to make a small diversion to revisit the site at NH022625, which had produced an obliging Northern Emerald last year in a brief brighter spell.

This time, however, the conditions were very different with hot, sunny weather, seemingly ideal for dragonflies. But surprisingly there was little activity with only a male Northern Emerald occasionally patrolling the clearing by the picnic table. It settled low down a few times but could never be located before it was flushed. It also settled high up in small tree but that didn't produce a worthwhile photo. A female also appeared very briefly and oviposited in the tiny pool about 30m NE of the table. 

Other species here included the odd Common Hawker and a Common Darter, neither of which posed for photos. Even here there was evidence of the drought, with many of the small boggy pools dried up.

This flight shot is an extreme crop which has come out OK, given its distance:

Distant Northern Emerald in flight  © Stephen Burch

2. Lochan Mor

We had two hot, sunny days in the Aviemore area. On the first of these days we passed Lochan Mor in an extended walk which also reached Loch-an-Eileen, an old favourite place of mine, dating back to the mid 1960s!

Lochan Mor, which I had never visited before, was evidently shallow with plenty of emergent vegetation, and had a reasonable number and variety of odonata, including Golden-ringed Dragonfly and Common Hawker. But as it was so hot, everything was very active and seldom settling.

Golden Ringed Dragonfly settled briefly in a shady spot. © Stephen Burch

3. Tulloch Moor

With no sign of any White-faced Darters at the "fire pool" near Loch Garten, we tried this site on Tulloch Moor where I had success with finding immatures way back in June 2010.

It was quite late in the season for this species, and the problem with this site (unnamed lochan at NH960163) is its boggy edges which prevent a close approach to the emergent vegetation around the fringe of the water. However we eventually found a spot where we weren't too far from the water and started to see White-faced Darters in amongst the more numerous Four-spotted Chasers and Black Darters. 

Photography was difficult because of all the vegetation, distance and the light direction. My shots are all big crops and the best I could do in the circumstances. This photo shows the white face clearly. 

White-faced Darter © Stephen Burch

White-faced Darter © Stephen Burch

For additional bird photos go to my photo gallery for this trip       

For all my 2025 dragonfly photos go to my 2025 dragonfly gallery

Hides Calera, Toledo, Spain, May 2025

As readers of my previous posts on this blog will know, I've made a fair number of visits to photo hides over the last few years. Nearly all have been day trips and within about an hour and half of home. 

Looking for something different, I heard about and saw some great photos from hides in Spain, with raptors being the main attractions. Investigating further I came across Hides Calera which is based in the Toledo area of central Spain, about one and a half hours from Madrid. These get booked up well in advance, and when I enquired in early January, there was no availability until early/mid May - well after the end of the winter season, which finishes in February and beyond April which is the peak of their spring season. 

I eventually settled on ten half-day sessions over five days. in eight different hides (I had two sessions in the Hoopoe and Bee Easter hides). All these hides were within relatively easy reach of their preferred hotel just outside Talavera de la Reina. The hides were very varied with the three raptor hides having the highest profile. Two had stunning backdrops of snowy capped mountains and all were well sited from the photographic perspective. 

Here is a small selection of the 40,000 images I took. For more photos and details of the trip, go to this page on my website. For my gallery of all processed photos to date, go to this page.

Sub adult Spanish Imperial Eagle from the Steppe Raptor Hide

Male Marsh Harrier from the Steppe Raptor Hide

Black Kite from the Steppe Raptor Hide

Griffon Vulture from the Valley Hide

Black Vulture from the Valley Hide

Black Kite landing from the Spanish Imperial Eagle Hide

Bee Eater from the Bee Eater Hide

Hoopoe from the Hoopoe Hide

Kingfisher again - Otterbourne, nr Winchester, 20 November 2024

Being keen to explore further the capabilities of my new toy - the Canon R5 Mark II, I booked another session at Pete Whieldon's excellent Kingfisher hide at Otterbourne, near Winchester. 

I was lucky with the weather this time, which was bright and sunny for the few hours of available daylight at this time of year. Just what was needed for action shots, and quite unlike my previous visit last January, which was on a very dull day.

To start with, there was no sign of the bird, and I began to fear that the trip had been in vain. However eventually the bird appeared at 11:00, whereupon it was very active for the remainder of the day.

My highest priority for this session was to try out again the pre-capture facility on the R5 Mark II. Perhaps I was being overly ambitious but I was also trying to get diving shots using my original R5, simply pre-focussed on the diving spot. So for every dive, I was trying to simultaneously press the cable release for the R5 and fully press the shutter button on the R5 Mark II! 

What I found was the pre-capture worked fine in itself, but the AF seldom if ever followed the bird down beyond the perch. It worked much better however when the bird flew off - as there was nothing else along the bird's trajectory for the AF to get confused by.

Here is a selection of photos I took through the day. Click on any of the captions to go to my website and see larger images. 

Also, see my Kingfisher gallery for more high res. versions of all the photos from this and other occasions. 

Kingfisher flying off, almost directly towards me (R5 Mk II, pre-capture) © Stephen Burch

Kingfisher flying off more sideways  (R5 Mk II, pre-capture) © Stephen Burch

Kingfisher flying off from a closer perch (R5 Mk II, pre-capture) © Stephen Burch

Diving shot (R5, pre-focussed)  © Stephen Burch

Diving shot (R5, pre-focussed)   © Stephen Burch

Stunning the fish before consuming it!  © Stephen Burch

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS again 19 October 2024

Another attempt at the comet, this time from the westerly edge of Wantage. For a more "environmental" shot, I tried using my Canon RF 16mm f2.8 wide-angle lens.

The conditions were probably even worse than on 17th, with thin cloud, murk and the near full moon again prominent in the east. Also, stacking was ineffective for these shots, so instead here is a single image after some processing. The photo shows the comet just before it went behind the upper layer of thin cloud. Thereafter the cloud quickly moved in and the comet disappeared behind it.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS © Stephen Burch

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, Berkshire Downs, 17 October

The brilliant full moon and murky skies did their best to obscure views of the much-hyped comet last night, 17 October. 

In the circumstances I was pleased to be able to get a sequence of 60 shots that after a fair amount of processing (stacking etc), gave the image below.

Taken with the Canon R5 & EF 100mm f2.8 macro, 5 sec exposure, ISO 1600, f2.8.

Note the faint reverse tail can just be seen below and to the right of comet nucleus. Best viewed large by clicking on the image. 

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS © Stephen Burch

The Canon R5 Mk II - initial impressions

As some of you may know, the much anticipated successor to the Canon R5, the R5 Mk II, was announced in July and pre-orders started to be satisfied in late August, which is when mine arrived.

I thought others might be tempted by this new camera, and I am hence sharing my initial impressions of it, from only a couple of weeks of use. 

Put simply my first impressions are very favourable, as are those many who post YouTube videos. 

It is clear that this camera is a major advance on the original R5, not just a minor, incremental upgrade. All my frustrations with the R5 have been addressed and this new camera is a wonderful new toy to play with! 

The pre-capture (absent on the R5) is an amazing new feature, giving you 0.5 sec of images before you fully press the shutter button (i.e. 15 shots at 30 frames per second!). This is amazing for getting shots of birds that are either taking off or have just taken off, as had this Kingfisher. With luck the AF area will even follow the bird - but this doesn't always happen. Maybe I need to tweak the AF settings. 

Kingfisher in flight obtained using pre-capture on the Canon R5 Mk II © Stephen Burch

The R5 Mk II also shows a significant improvement in the already very good autofocus on the R5. This really helps for challenging subjects such as dragonflies in flight. 

Another notable feature is the inclusion of a stacked sensor, so that the weird rolling shutter effects that could sometimes be seen on the R5's images, should be a thing of the past. This allows use of the much higher frame rate possible with the electronic shutter for nearly all wildlife photography.

Of particular interest to me is one of the most challenging cases for rolling shutter effects - dragonflies in flight, due to the very fast speed of their wings.

I think both the improved AF and shooting at 30 fps with the electronic shutter helped for this image of a brief encounter with a Southern Hawker in flight:

Southern Hawker in flight © Stephen Burch

However for subsequent dragonfly in flight photos, I believe I am seeing some unwanted effects in the fast moving wings and so will probably revert to the mechanical shutter with it's slower frame rate in future.

Lastly (for the time being!), the lack of rolling shutter effects also helps with focus-stacking - something I regularly tried with the R5 for settled dragonflies, with varying success. 

For this focus-stacked R5 Mk II image of a Willow Emerald Damselfly, I wasn't able to fully support my arms given where the damselfly was located. With the R5 the series of images needed for focus stacking would have suffered from weird warping and wobbling effects caused by the interaction betweem the image stabilisation and shutter readout. Happily on the R5 Mk II, these effects have gone, and the image sequence was much more stable giving a greater chance of the focus stacking software working effectively.

Focus stacked image of a Willow Emerald Damselfly © Stephen Burch

For more on my initial thoughts on this new camera, see a page I have just uploaded to my website.

PS This post was not sponsored by Canon in any way! It was my unassisted purchase! 

Kingfisher - Otterbourne, nr Winchester - 15 January 2024

It was as long ago as summer 2021 that I last visited Pete Whieldon's Kingfisher hide at Otterbourne, near Winchester, so another session was long overdue. Despite the bird being present since last summer, the hide was still quite popular, so I needed to book well in advance. Hence  I had no control of the weather on the day.

This proved be very dull with low light levels more or less all day. It did brighten up around midday but at that time the bird was on an extended (4hr) lunch break! Hence most of the visits were relatively early morning and late afternoon when it was very dull indeed. 

This turned out to be a mixed blessing as the dull conditions from this hide produced nice soft lighting conditions for photos of the perched bird. Action shots were however challenging and, to freeze the bird's motion, I had to use up to ISO 25,600 on both the Canon R5 and R7. As the photographers among you will know, such a high ISO generates very high noise levels, especially on images from the cropped sensor on the R7. 

But it is amazing what the latest AI noise reduction software can do with these types of image. My preferred combination for such photos is to use DxO Pure Raw 3, followed, if necessary, by Topaz AI noise reduction.

I was also keen to try out to the pre-capture option on the R7 - which allows collection of images taken before the shutter button is pressed - potentially useful for Kingfishers diving in a fixed direction off a perch.  

Here is a selection of photos I took through the day. Click on any of the captions to go to my website and see larger images. 

Also, go to my Kingfisher gallery for more high res. versions of all the photos from this and other occasions. 

Kingfisher just of the perch, taken with the R7's pre-capture  © Stephen Burch

A couple of frames later by which time it had drifted slightly out of focus © Stephen Burch

Contact! Taken with the R5 by pre-focussing and blasting away at 20 fps! © Stephen Burch

Just about to return to the perch with a fish (R5) © Stephen Burch! 

Early morning perched. © Stephen Burch

Early morning with a fish. © Stephen Burch

Later on in the day. © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl near Market Harborough - 23 August 2023

Earlier in the year, I watched a YouTube video by Mike Lane which covered a session he had at Des Ong's raptor/Barn Owl hide near Market Harborough. During the day he had been able to photo a Kestrel and later on, Barn Owls appeared, initially in daylight and then after dark. 

This got my attention as I'd never heard of this hide before, and I had never previously had the chance to photo Barn Owls from a hide. So I quickly arranged a date in July with Des. Unfortunately the forecast for that session was atrocious so I asked to postpone it. The next mutually convenient date was 23 August - much later than I had hoped for.  

By August, all of the session, which started at 20:30, was in darkness, so there was no chance of any daylight photos. After dark, lighting is provided not by flash but continuous LED lights which limits the max shutter speed to 1/100 sec, so there was no chance of any action shots. 

When we arrived, we were told that the pair of Barn Owls, which nest very close to the hide, were onto a second brood, but this was at the egg/small young stage. 

Once installed in the "trailer hide" we were told to be as quiet as possible and not to use any light. This was somewhat challenging and the odd brief use of the torch was needed. It was also a warm and very still night.

All started well, as one of the owls arrived almost immediately we were settled in at 21:00 and stayed for about ten minutes. But unfortunately, for whatever reason, there were then no further visits for the remainder of the session, which ended abruptly at 23:00. So a somewhat tedious couple of hours - although every so often an owl would fly into a nearby tree to get our hopes up. But it always then just flew off. 

However, that one visit did provide a reasonable range of shots, as shown below. 

Because of the dearth of visits, Des has agreed we can return for a free session. So hopefully next year some day time photos will be possible, and there will be more visits, if we time it right. 

Click on the captions to see large images on my website

Barn Owl at the end of a post © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl face on © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl sideways on © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl front view © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl close up © Stephen Burch

Barn Owl with large mouse © Stephen Burch

Somerset Wildlife Hides - 5 July 2023

This was my first visit to Peter Spencer's raptor hide near Yeovil. This was somewhat further afield than my normal range and required an overnight stay the night before.  [Peter doesn't appear to have a website, but does maintain an active Facebook Group].

The key attraction of his raptor hide at this time of year is a family of  Kestrels that nests nearby. With the young having recently emerged, all were coming down to the perches. Hence there could be the amazing sight of up to about 4 of the 5 juveniles and one adult (usually the male)  present at the same time!

This hide faces NE and so with a sunny morning, the lighting was very difficult. However after a few hours it become more cloudy which helped. In the afternoon it stayed cloudy when I would have preferred some sun! Such are the vagaries of photography from a fixed location on a day booked months in advance. It least it wasn't pouring down with rain all day, as it had been doing the day before!  

This hide features a large range of perches, but many had rather close backgrounds which I prefer to avoid. There was however one post where the background was some distance away. The hide also had a reflection "table" very close to the hide but none of the birds went in it when I was there. 

There were frequent visits during the day, especially the morning, so I took a huge number of photos. 

I show a few of them below (click on the captions for larger versions).

Also, there are more photo on my website, which can be found by going to this gallery:

Kestrel Gallery

For this shot, these two juveniles were on this post, and briefly were both looking in roughly the same direction towards me. 

Two juvenile Kestrel together © Stephen Burch

I never find flight shots easy with the restricted viewing at most hides and this was no exception, especially when using the rear screen all the time and not the EVF. However this one worked out although I'm not too sure about the background.

Kestrel in flight © Stephen Burch

For this shot, I tried the pre-capture facility on the R7 which worked for once: 

Incoming Kestrel © Stephen Burch

Below is a portrait of the fine male. A very well coloured bird:

Male Kestrel © Stephen Burch

I believe this is the female - about to depart:

Female Kestrel © Stephen Burch

One of juveniles calling to be fed, even though they could all do this themselves perfectly well!

Juvenile Kestrel © Stephen Burch

A juvenile on a different perch:

Juvenile Kestrel © Stephen Burch

A juvenile on the hedge in a bit of sun:

Juvenile Kestrel © Stephen Burch