After a recent trip to Bempton cliffs and being slightly disappointed with only seeing a few puffins I decided to head up to Scotland to the Treshnish Isles and the Isle of Lunga, somewhere where I will be guaranteed to photograph and see plenty of puffins and other sea birds.
As it happened the weather was absolutely perfect clear blue skies not too windy with a nice warm sea breeze.
I arrived in Oban ready to catch the ferry the night before with an early start boarding at 7:00 AM, and then a 1 1/2 hours coach ride to Fionnphort at the far end of the island of Mull.
Once onboarded we had an hour sailing to get to the Isle of Lunga with a limited time on the island of only two hours I now had to create my video and capture some stunning images of these beautiful puffins.
Thoughts were going through my mind of how difficult this would be and whether could I achieve what I wanted to achieve in such a short period of time, focusing on the job in hand I set off up the hill to start photographing the puffins, to my amazement there were hundreds of them literally within a few meters of our feet we've been being able to lie down get low to the ground and photograph these wonderful puffins flying to and fro from the Cliff edge and entering their Burrows below, a spectacle I had not imagined, I have seen a few pictures online of how close people can be to the puffins but this was incredible this was just another level I was in awe.
Having two cameras in my hand one with the Canon R7 and the Canon R5 with a 70 to 200 mm F 2.8 lens and on the other a 100 to 500 F 4.5 lens, I was armed and ready to focus on the puffin's guillemots, gannets and Fulmars flying around my head.
And just like that the time was up have I achieved but I set out to, did I have enough photos have I got enough video all these thoughts are rushing through my head whilst being overwhelmed by the entire experience. All I could think of was I'm coming back I'm definitely coming back here.
After a short walk, I boarded the boat to the Isle of staffa where many people were going to see The Cave I decided that I would head up to the top of staffa sit alone looking out across the aisles taking it all in and enjoying the peace and quiet whilst watching the puffins.
We soon departed the Isle of staffa and headed to the Isle of Iona where we could get refreshments a toilet break and a nice hot cup of coffee time to absorb and take in everything we had experienced in the morning before boarding the ferry back to urban and a 5 1/2 hour drive home.
Exhausted tired and excited by what I had seen rushed through my head as I drove home.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT USED
Canon R5
Canon R6
Canon R7 amzn.to/41jeNcw
Canon rf 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L
Canon EF 70 -200mm f2.8 IS III L
Canon RF 85mm f1.2L USM DS Lens
Canon RF 1.4 x convertor
Smallrig Camara cage x3
Benro Tortoise 24CLV Tripod
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SOCIAL MEDIA & OTHER CONTACTS TO SUPPORT MY WORK
CONTACT ME ash@wildlifephotographeruk.co.uk
WEBSITE www.wildlifephotographeruk.co.uk
FACEBOOK / wildlifephotographeruk
INSTAGRAM / wildlifephotographeruk
TWITTER / ashleyjbarnard
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Other items used, and in my Kit
Sony ICD-TX660 - Digital Voice Recorder: amzn.to/40OeG8a
Benro Gh5c Gimbal Head: amzn.to/3TGYgLs
Benro Tortoise 24CLV Tripod amzn.to/3DGLLJ9
Self Adhesive Camouflage: amzn.to/3SkqWsp
Rain Poncho: amzn.to/3VN8Bal
Camera Battery Case: amzn.to/3VOFtQ8
Tripod Stool: amzn.to/3eW2sIr
Camouflage scrim: amzn.to/3z3rdt4
8 июн 2023
