An AMAZING day of wildlife photography
After a day stuck at base due to bad weather, the clouds have parted, and the skies are blue(ish) so we are headed back to the mountains.
On our way up the mountain, we once again ran into the massive herd of stags, this time in a mini blizzard! However, once again, they were quite a distance off, so it was just a quick stop off before getting to the ski centre and donning all our cold weather gear as today was absolutely, freezing!
We headed out up one of the main paths from the Glenshee Ski Centre and started our journey up the mountain. It was quite hard going due to the incredibly strong winds that came with a biting chill factor. In places where there was water, the grass was fully encased in ice!
As we made our way up, we spotted red grouse amongst the heathers, and just as the sun peaked out from behind a cloud, I was able to capture this beauty ❤️
Female Red Grouse
My video clips from this spot are quite comical to look at, I think I am going to have to bring my tripod along with me if I want any useable footage when there is more than a slight breeze, as there is 0 chance of me holding my camera and lens still long enough, even in 50fps!
As we got higher, we started to see more of the mountain hares we were all wanting to find. We found a great viewing point for some that were just across a small valley and thanks to a mound on the ground I got some stability for the flag that is the 200-600 mm lens!
After spending some time watching the hares and capturing our images, we headed back to the trail and continued on up the mountain.
Near the top, we had a bit of a snow shower, which thanks to the wind right in our face, felt like getting hit with tiny frozen daggers. As we reached the top of this part of the mountain, there was a stunning view over a partially frozen lake. I took a moment to swap lenses and grabbed my 24-70 mm to take an image of the lake.
At this point, we were given the option to walk back the way we had come, or continue up the mountain in the search for some ptarmigan that were likely to be higher up. I continued to the top, where it was even more windy. However, we were treated to a mountain hare out in the open, and I was able to capture some of my favourite images of the trip. They are such beautiful animals and to be able to see one as close as we did and get some epic images was simply amazing and was the highlight of the trip.
We continued on, but unfortunately there were to ptarmigan to be seen (probably because it was so darn windy), rather than head back down the path we had just come up on, it was decided that dropping down the front of the mountain, to follow the ski lift was the best option.
Now, this was where it got a bit tricky, it was so windy, my first attempt at getting from the little lift office down and out of the wind got abandoned as I was going to be lifted off my feet by the wind. So, I scuttled back behind the building and packed all my gear away to make the next step a bit easier as I was going to have to butt shuffle about 30 meters to drop down the mountain far enough that I would be out of the wind and safe to stand up and not get whisked off like a kite. (Un)fortunately, no one captured my graceful descent on camera, and once across I was able to get up and walk the rest of the way down the mountain which, other and a few mild cases of brain freeze from the chilling wind (that was a new experience) went well and once regrouped at the bottom we headed into the ski centre café to warm up.
This was an absolutely amazing day and I feel I have now got the wildlife photography bug! Being out in the mountains all day, photographing the stunning hares, was a brilliant experience and one I will definitely be doing again.