Otter this morning

Was out leading a short wildlife photography walk this morning. Otters were hot on the wishlist so we drove along the shore road, parked and got out the binoculars. "There's one," I said. Easy as that.

As great as it was watching our lutrine friend fishing in the waves we didn't get a shot so here's one I took in roughly the same spot before - possibly the same otter. Also a couple of landscapes from the rest of our walk. The weather was a tad grim but we made the best of it.

Coast to Coast backwards

Back from updating Trailblazer's Coast to Coast guidebook. This will be the 5th edition. I did the 200 mile hike backwards. I didn't actually walk backwards but did the reverse to what everyone else does by walking from Robin Hood's Bay to St Bees. As everyone else tackling the walk is heading east I found myself having to say a lot of hellos around about lunchtime every day.

Weather was lousy but camped anyway. Tried to avoid the organised campsites and - even worse - the hideous caravan parks and found some great wild camp spots instead. Angle Tarn and Ennerdale Water in the Lakes were highlights.

Lowlight was a night with the lowlifes in Shap who turned the tiny campsite into an all night rave venue. I ended up packing up at three in the morning and re-pitching on the pavement next to the A-road. Pegs don't go easily into concrete so spent the rest of the night in a saggy bag of a tent in the rain and got woken up by lorries from the quarries thundering past at 5am. Camping in the hills the next night was a great antidote.

There are more pictures on my Facebook page.

Knoydart timelapse

Here's another timelapse of Knoydart, as seen from my garden. This is about an hour compressed into 17 seconds, shot on my Canon EOS 7D. You can see the lights of the metropolis of Inverie coming on as the light fades.

New image galleries

My new image gallery page is now live: http://jtm.photoshelter.com/

You can now download images or buy prints. There are galleries on wildlife, Scotland, hillwalking, the Himalayas and more. Feel free to let others know too!

Blue tits nesting

Well, this baby-rearing business is proving to be a great way of finding the local wildlife. First the bats and now blue tits. If it wasn't for my wee son demanding a cuddle with a view out of the window I wouldn't have been staring out into the garden for fifteen minutes and I wouldn't have spotted the blue tits flitting in and out of a natural hole in an old ash tree. So, I got the 400mm lens on it and managed to get a couple of shots. They're a bit grainy but it's a start.

Otter having a scratch

Knoydart gets a great summer, usually for about two weeks in May. This year it came at the end of April and so far May has been a washout. I had hoped to get out and film the otters but I've used the bad weather as an excuse to stay indoors and update my website. In the meantime I've had my Bushnell camera trap strapped to a tree by the otter holt down the road. Of about 30 clips over the last few days, this is the best.

Baby bat alarm

My wife and I have now had nearly five months of endless sleepless nights tending to a tiny new life. Every hour or so we're up to change nappies, do hot water bottles or feed the little tike (well, I don't do that bit).

A few nights ago, at about three in the morning, I was on my way to the kitchen to do yet another hot water bottle when something caught my eye through the front door window. Something small and dark had just flown through the moonlight into our porch. There were swallows nesting in there but it was way past their bed time. A quick look with a torch revealed a couple of brown long eared bats - never before recorded here in Knoydart. So I set my trusty camera trap up and got this short video.

We've now got about half a dozen bats using our porch every night as a resting up place during their night time midge hunts. I don't know how long they've been using it but if it wasn't for my baby son and his night time alarm calls I might never have known they were there.