In the forest, Ben Lora.

Its been a windy, cold week with three severe gales interspersed with sleet and snow and thundery hail thrown in for good measure. Several trees are down in the forest blocking one of the tracks. By Friday the wind had eased and there was a covering of snow.

Forest track blocked

Forest track blocked - a higher view

From the first picnic spot looking towards Oban

From first picnic spot looking north

Over Tralee Bay

Tralee Bay

Looking north-west over Benderloch village
with snow clouds looming

Christmas Day 2014

A fine, crisp afternoon. Ideal for a walk on the beach at Benderloch.

Christmas photos

Timber operations in Ben Lora forest have stopped for the holiday and judging by the snow cover on Dec 27th I'm sure the guys are happier to be indoors for a few days.

Orchids

At the rear of Tralee beach in Benderloch (behind the shingle area) is always a good spot for seeing Marsh Orchids at this time of year. The group in the picture are in the middle of a (usually) boggy area on a raised "island". With this year's lack of rain the bog is pretty dry and it was easy to walk to get this shot.

Sutherland's Grove 19 June 2012

Afternoon sun through the forest at
Sutherland's Grove trail, Barcaldine.

There's not been much rain recently so the
water level is low in the stream at
Sutherland's Grove.

Roe deer

Roe deer are a common sight in the area, varying from fleeting glimpses of a disappearing rear-end as the deer scamper into the undregrowth to longer views as they contentedly nibble in our gardens during winter and spring (and frustratingly for us remove the flower heads from our prize blooms). But I think most who saw this pair close to the main road were suitably enchanted. The fawn was just a few hours old and still a bit uncertain on its feet but instinctively knew how to suckle. The doe seemed to feel fairly safe as there's a high wall between herself and where I was standing and the pair returned to this spot for several days.

Bluebells

Bluebells at sunset in the wood near Letterwalton at the north end of Benderloch

March snow

As often happens March has it's share of snow. As it melted these colourful crocus flowers stood out against the snowy, grassy background.

Misty Loch

Fishing boat moored on Loch Creran.
It was a showery day with low misty cloud but dry when I shot this. Its made from layering 2 images of 3exposures HDR. The camera was doing too good a job of clearing the mist in a normal single shot. The HDR method enabled me to reproduce the scene much as I saw it.

Loch Creran

High tide today on Loch Creran. There was a lot of snow on the hills yesterday but much has now melted.

First of December

We are having daytime temperatures of -3C and the east od the UK has had up to 25cm of snow. But the Grampian moutains are keeping the snow away from the west coast and the crisp, cold air is producing terrific lighting in mid-afternoon as seen in this view of Ben Cruachan and Loch Etive from the Connel Bridge.

I used my 30x telephoto lens to take this shot of Cruachan from the same spot.

In the Forest

It was a lovely sunny but cold weekend after the first hill snow of the winter. I took a walk up Ben Lora through the forest and got this image of the mid-afternoon sun through the conifers. Its an HDR shot using six differently exposed photographs.

Lambs

These lambs very obligingly posed for me against the sunset. a couple of evenings ago.

Riding to the beach

Riding down the track to the beach at Benderloch.

Connel bridge

Connel bridge from the Old Shore road Connel.

Snowy Ben Cruachan

Ben Cruachan seen from Connel bridge.

Light snowfall

Several snow showers here overnight This was the track to the beach mid-afternoon. Not a lot of snow here on the coast, but I saw a car passing through the village with several inches on it's roof so there must have been heavier falls in the hills.

Sunset

Friday Dec 18th. A day of low cloud and snow showers then at 3:30pm a break appeared just in time for a short-lived, but spectacular sunset over Tralee Bay.

Frosty morning Benderloch

Temperature stayed around freezing all day. I went down to the beach this morning and took some pictures. The sun appeared over the slopes of Ben Lora about 11am and the colours were interesting.

From behind the beach looking over the frozen ponds.

From the top of the beach as a lone boat exits Loch Etive and heads towards Mull.

Clouds over Ben Lora, Benderloch

(Click picture to enlarge)

The view from my front door this afternoon as cloud from a weather front started to pass overhead.

Standard photography didn't show this dramatic sky very well so I took three bracketed shots and put them through Corel PSP X2 using the HDR function - image below should show this.

So from three "interesting" pix I created the "dramatic" one which was much more as I saw it. Photos taken with Panasonic TZ7 which has a max +/- EV of 1.0. I could maybe have used RAW with my Nikon but the Panasonic was handy and time was of the essence!