Photography on a (almost) uninhabited island.
Continuing on our Scottish sailing adventure, I find myself on the remote (there is no car access) Isle of Rona on the west coast of Scotland, to the east of the isle of Skye. Rona has currently got 4 permanent residents who look after and manage the estate’s land, red deer population and holiday accommodation. There is also a small harbour with 5 visitor moorings, or you can choose to anchor instead.
My plan for today, is to explore towards the south of the Island, in the hope of finding some wildlife to photograph. The island is home to many coastal birds, as well as a healthy red deer population. We visited in early June, which is when the deer are birthing their fawns, so we may get really lucky and see one!
My photo walk started at 7:30 am from the harbour, where I was able to photograph some of the many oystercatchers, as well as some greylag geese.
I am using my 70-200 f2.8 GM ii lens coupled with the 2X Teleconverter. I find that I really like this combination, due to how lightweight it is, in comparison to the 200-600 G lens that I hired earlier this year. While it does have its limitations, my back thanks me for using this set up.
The path leads me towards a little wooded outcrop, where, just off the main path, I spot my first red deer! I managed to capture a few images, before she wandered away from the path, so I slowly walk towards where I saw her, it is amazing how fast these really quite large animals can disappear, but I spot her, and another female, higher up amongst the trees.
After spending some time watching these beautiful creatures, I continued on my walk. The views and scenery on Rona are absolutely stunning and for me, resemble Tolkien’s middle earth.
For the main part of my walk south, I saw signs of the red deer, but nothing much in the way of wildlife at all. The walk I was on, was 2.5 miles one way, and about halfway through, I decided to turn back as I was starting to get hungry, and I felt that I was less likely to see any deer the further I went as there were no woodlands for them to hide out in.
This turned out to be a very good decision, as about 10 minutes after turning back, I spotted a group of 4 across the way from me. I managed to hide myself low on the track and creep forward and took my images. Unfortunately, they were very far away and with the camera set to APS-C mode, giving me an effective maximum focal range of 600 mm, the images I feel are still more like snapshots however, it was a great feeling to have found/stumbled into these deer all on my own.
Once they had moved on, I continued to head back to the boat, I did have another couple of encounters with these deer, before the heavens opened and properly chucked it down. Without any cover to shelter behind, my only option was to stand back into the wind and rain and wait the shower out. I got utterly soaked, but thankfully my sailing waterproofs kept me mostly dry.
Once the shower had passed, it was back to glorious sunshine, and I once again, encountered the 4 red deer from earlier, this time they were right at the top of a rocky hillside.
I continued my walk back to the harbour, where I ran into a couple, also staying on a boat here, and they had just seen some red deer right by the footpath, I feel it was probably the ones I had met at the start of my walk, but unfortunately, they had moved by the time I passed by.
On my way back, after the rain had passed and the sun returned, I popped on my 24-70 f2.8 GM ii lens for this shot over the harbour where we were staying on our boat (the one on the left).
All in all, I had an absolutely amazing time on my walk on the Isle of Rona. Whilst I felt that I did not get any keeper shots of the red deer, the experience more than made up for it.