31st August HAWKERS MATING
True boggy habitats are disappearing fast, mainly due to drainage for other uses, but locally there are a few places that still maintain the damp patches. I had been inspired to check out these habitats by an article in Outdoor Photography magazine of which I am a subscriber. The article was by Laurie Campbell (another excellent photographer). Whilst on the lookout for emerging black darters in one such boggy place I heard a buzzing in the bog myrtle bushes and found a pair of hawkers locked together. I ended up chasing them around the bog as they never settled comfortably but once they had a good firm grip on this bush I was able to approach and take some good photos again with a 300mm lens and an extension tube.

24th August CARN MARIG SUNSET
A friend had suggested that the view from the Carn Marig in Glen Lyon looking up the glen would make a nice photograph, but rather than go up in the middle of the day to capture a rather staid view in the middle of the day that had probably been done countless time before I tried something a little different. I am a big fan of the work of Colin Prior who (for those of you who don’t know him -but should) is a true master of panoramic mountain photography, and so I followed his advice and decided to capture the scene in the evening sunlight. I spent the night on the hill with Fraoch our yellow Labrador puppy (who escaped from the house and chased me up the hill) and I was rewarded with this gorgeous pink colour in the evening. Whilst not up to Colin Prior standards it taught me a few things (lock the dog up!). Lens:28-135mm zoom and Tripod

17th August WOOD SORREL
This delicate clover shaped plant has a small white flower in the spring but for me the real beauty lies in the leaves. I had often photographed it from above to show the pattern of leaves on the forest floor but a few days earlier I had noted how shafts of light emphasise the leaves so I returned with my tripod with this sort of image in my mind. A useful piece of advice I picked up from one of Andy Rouses books is to remove the centre column of the tripod. I use a manfrotto tripod so I removed the central column as per his advice and it gives several benefits. The column is notoriously less stable when fully extended so it ensures sharper pictures by removing it, it reduces , the already considerable, weight and it means you can maximise the tripods minimum height which for this picture meant that I could lie on the forest floor and get this low angle. Lens: 300mm with extension tubes.

10th August PTARMIGAN
This is one of my favourite Scottish birds and mainly because when you know how and where you can get some very easy pictures. Ptarmigan are Britain’s only year round arctic resident. They turn perfectly white in winter apart from a few dark splodges but in summer they are speckled grey that allows them to blend into the rocks that they live amongst. They are quite straightforward to photograph as they will run from you when you approach until you are really too close. When you are just about to catch them they burst into flight with a flurry of wings. The hard bit is finding them in the first place. They croak to one another but the easiest way to find them is to zig-zag across high altitude screes (away from the usual walkers tracks). This individual had stopped and was doing its best to hide amongst the rocks. Lens: 300mm

3rd August EMERALD DAMSELFLY
Damselflies can appear suddenly and then a few weeks later they disappear just as quickly but in the case of the emerald damselfly its interesting to note that the males emerge a few days before the females. This probably allows them time to secure territories. This male was using this piece of duckweed as a frequent resting point so I lay down right on the water level (and consequently got rather wet!) and waited for him to stop by. Several photos later I had the image I wanted. Again I was using a combination of a 300mm lens and an extension tube