As most of you who follow my Facebook page will know I tend to publish mainly landscape photographs with the odd travel one (again mainly land/cityscapes of foreign places) and maybe the odd ‘something different’ photo when I play around with macro or portraits or some other such genre.

The one thing I have never really shown any tendency to photograph is wildlife. It’s not because I’m not particularly interested in the subject, more that I prefer trying to find that particular scene in a nice landscape when I’m outside wandering the countryside. Sitting around waiting for an animal to appear has never really appealed with my lack of true patience.

However, here in Tiree it’s a slightly different matter. With wildlife in every direction it’s actually quite hard to ignore as it’s always there in front of you. From domestic ‘wildlife’ in the shapes of cows and sheep through to Hares and a variety of birds including Greylag Geese, Lapwings, Oyster Catchers and many other seabirds you always walk passed some bird or animal. The other big factor is that some of places I know are not exactly on the tourist trail, rocky promontories and secluded bays have birds and other animals who rarely see or meet a human - they spend their days with cows or sheep for company. This means you can actually approach quite close without having them take flight, or quickly accept you and go back to doing what they do.

Greylag Geese found within a hundred or so metres from the house we are staying in.

The other big reason I’ve not really shown much interest in wildlife is that it requires some pretty dedicated equipment, specifically lenses! Now I’d never really complain about my camera body as the 70D is no slouch for autofocus and frames per second but the longest lens I own is a 70-200, which even on a crop sensor isn’t really long enough for most subjects. But, and it’s quite a big thing really, I have the ability to borrow Anna’s 7DII which is in a different league for tracking fast moving subjects, paired with the 70-200 it’s ideal for the sports I photograph but would it work with wildlife?

The Crows Nest. We happened upon this nest of young crows on our wanders, I was surprised to find any hatched chicks, far less 5 healthy young crows!

To answer that question I wandered off to find out. I’ll let you judge how successful the camera/lens combo was and alI can say is I rather like this wildlife photography! I wonder if I can justify a longer focal length lens, or maybe a teleconverter for use with the 70-200..?

Oyster Catchers carrying out a bit of wave running.