​The first week in January brought a series of sunrises and sunsets to Loch Sunart that were so intense that they had the ability to stop you in your tracks. These awe-inspiring events tend to begin with the slightest tinge of red and pink appearing in the clouds overhead. However, when there is a cloud gap on the horizon, light can make its way upwards to paint the sky overhead with a richness of pinks, reds and golds. One morning, when the loch was flat and calm, that telltale tinge was in the sky overhead and light was finding its way through the cloud on the horizon. With much anticipation, I wandered down to the rocky foreshore with my camera, stood there and watched the colours build and build until suddenly, the sky seemed to ignite and scatter its colours over the surface of the Loch. I absorbed the scene for a moment, raised the camera to my eye and pressed the shutter button.

​Capturing these fiery skies, be it at sunrise or sunset, certainly requires a great deal of anticipation. Although they build slowly, that peak of intense light and colour that captivates the senses appears suddenly and then disappears almost as quickly. Therefore, the key is to recognise the initial signs, watch patiently as the colours build and be ready to capture that brief moment when the sky is set on fire by those intense pinks, reds and golds.

​Thin cloud cover and passing rain showers are also something I look for at sunrise and sunset because they can interact with the light from a low sun to create some wonderful golden colours. While these conditions may not create the intensity of those fiery sunrises and sunsets, they do lead to a subtle mix of tones with a longer-lasting beauty. Gone is that fleeting burst of colour and in its place is a golden veil that can last an hour or so and not just a few minutes.

​I find that this relative longevity allows for a different kind of photographic experience, one that doesn't demand haste. One that doesn’t come with the pressure of missing the moment. Instead, it invites me to slow down, watch and absorb the subtle changes in the water and the sky. It allows me to savour the entire scene before calling me to explore and capture some of the detail within, be that the shimmering of ripples on the water, or the interplay of light, water and land.

This is the photographic experience I prefer. One that creates a meditative atmosphere, and one that brings me inner peace and calm. I can very easily get lost in the moment, completely immersed in my surroundings, sitting by the still waters of the loch, mesmerised by light dancing on its surface and watching seaweed drift gently by.

​On a morning when this “golden hour” was coming to an end and the light levels were increasing, silhouetted rocks began to emerge from the shadows to reveal the details on their surface and the soft, golden colours that were cast over the loch gradually gave way to the blue hues of oncoming daylight. It was a delightful transition, with layers of sunrise-gold and sky-blue blending seamlessly together on the surface of the loch.

​January not only means glorious sunrises and sunsets here at Resipole, but also an increase in wildlife activity in the sea in front of the house. A regular morning visitor is a heron that I often see standing still with its keen eyes fixed on the water, looking for the first signs of movement to reveal the presence of fish. It can stand there for an age, just as it did one morning when silhouetted against the surface of the loch, waiting patiently for its prey while the subtle hues of gold and silver shimmered in the water behind it.

​An otter was another regular visitor to the loch shore, spending an hour or two on an almost daily basis hunting for prey amongst the rocks and ribbons of seaweed that emerged during the mid-tide. It was particularly active on a few cold and clear days when the mid-tide happened to coincide with sundown. This coming together of tide and sunset created a softly lit and warm backdrop against which I photographed this beautiful creature as it hunted in the water, occasionally coming ashore to preen itself or feast on captured prey. As always, it was a privilege to spend time in its company, time that came to an end as darkness fell, and the otter retreated into the oakwoods that line the loch shore.

​As beautiful as sunrises and sunsets are and as beguiling as the wildlife is, it is the first light of the day breaking through clouds and mist and falling on the hillsides that perhaps draws my eye the most. This is especially the case on mid-winter mornings when the Isle of Carna, at the western extremity of my view, is always the first to catch the light. There is an undeniable enchantment in watching a warm glow fall firstly on the peak of Cruachan Chàrna, the island’s highest hill, and then slowly creep down its east-facing slope as the sun rises above the hills of Morvern to its east.

​When looking the other way, it was the sight of the warm light illuminating Ben Resipole that greeted me. First to be lit, was this Corbett’s pyramid shaped peak. A golden glow warmed the rugged surface of its rocky, snow-covered south face while cloud gradually cleared from its top. Mist swirling beneath the peak gradually gave way and allowed patches of light to highlight sections of the mountain’s lower slopes. As the sun continued to rise above the hills on the southern side of the Loch, it began to light the tops of Morvern’s higher peaks, with Monadh Rahuaidh, one of the higher hills just to the south of the Isle of Carna, being one of the first of them to feel the warmth of the sun.

​As the month progressed, thick clouds dominated the weather and hung low in the sky. They seemed to hug the tops of hills on the south side of Loch Sunart for days and I began to think that the photographic opportunities had come to an end. However, one morning a band of light broke through them and mixed pale orange hues with the surrounding grey. This unexpected burst of colour against the otherwise monochrome landscape felt like a gift from nature, serving as a reminder of the beauty that can emerge even on the most overcast of days.

​As the morning progressed, the sun continued its battle with the cloud and more gaps appeared to reveal the once hidden hilltops. Minute by minute, the hills emerged from the gloom and slivers of light cascaded downwards, breathing life into the landscape and transforming it into a canvas of contrasts from which I picked out details with a long telephoto lens.

​The following morning, I woke to a clear sky and as darkness retreated and twilight emerged, a delicate band of pink, known as the “Belt of Venus” began to appear out in the west. This atmospheric phenomenon is what is known as an anti-twilight arch, forming just above the horizon, opposite the rising or setting sun. There is an ethereal beauty to the gradient of colour that it creates, so it is little wonder that its name is derived from the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Capturing the sight of it with my drone flying above the icy blue waters of Loch Sunart seemed a fitting way to end my photographic exploration of the ever-changing view I’ve lived with for the past nine years. It is a view that continues to reveal a bit more of itself to me with each passing day and long may this continue.

December was a month of continuous grey with low cloud, mist and rain enveloping the landscape for much of the time. This encouraged me to stay close to home and limit my wanders with the camera to exploring the rocky shoreline of Loch Sunart within a mile or two of my home at Resipole. As you walk along the shoreline, the eye tends to get drawn to the expansive views of Loch Sunart as it curves through the hills of Sunart to its north and the hills of Morvern to its south. However, I found myself paying more attention to the rocks and boulders that were under my feet, capturing images of their curves and patterns, while contemplating on how they told me a story of how the landscape was formed and the immense timescales involved.
​

​Walking along the shoreline westwards from Resipole, in the littoral zone between the sea and the ancient Atlantic oakwoods, means picking your way over the countless rounded boulders. It is slow going, with eyes pointed downwards as you carefully move your feet from one boulder to another. 

​However, as one footstep follows another, you begin to notice that what initially appeared to be a monochrome shoreline is actually full of colour. Blacks and greys gradually give way to the red and pink hues that are mixed in with them and you begin to realise that you are walking on multi-coloured parcels of geological time. 

​Look closer again and you begin to find boulders with waves of white running through them, causing you to stop and consider the magnitude of the forces that were at play when these lines were formed, lines that speak of the area's dynamic volcanic past.

​However, it is a mile or so further west along the Loch, at the entrance to Sàilean nan Cuileag, where evidence of the forces and processes that shaped the landscape is particularly evident. The bare rock that lies there, between the sea and a blanket of heather and bracken, is a maze of twisted lines and fissures that speaks loudly of the Peninsula’s creation.

​It is awe-inspiring to think that these folds and grooves are physical records of immense forces and processes that were at play millions of years ago, when the now long extinct volcanic ring complex that formed Ardnamurchan was at the peak of its activity.

​However, it is perhaps the immensity of geological time compared to the brevity of human time that is more awe-inspiring. Geological time spans the 4.54 billion years of the Earth’s existence and dwarfs the mere thousands of years of human history. To comprehend this, consider that if the 4.54-billion-year timeline was represented by a 24-hour clock, then the entirety of recorded human history would fit into a mere 1-second sliver of it.

Considering this, it is little wonder that while exploring these ancient formations, I felt a blend of curiosity, respect, and reverence for them. They are silent storytellers of Earth's geological past. Not only did they encourage me to photograph them, but they invited me to listen and reflect, capturing what I felt, rather than capturing what I saw.

​A favourite place of mine, Lochan na Dunaich, is just a couple of miles from the house. There is a lovely little trail that winds its way through the woodland there and this is where I headed to on the morning I awoke, opened the curtains, and saw the landscape covered in a fresh dusting of snow.

​The first part of the trail takes you alongside a dense stand of birch trees and on this particular morning its web of impenetrable branches was topped with a thin layer of snow. The snow was so finely balanced on them that it seemed like the slightest of movement would send it crashing to the ground.

​Thankfully, there was not a breath of wind, the slender limbs remained perfectly still and the snow, which was like powdered white sugar, clung to them, accentuating their form and allowing me to create a set of abstracts that portrayed the web of dark and tangled branches against a beautifully white backdrop. In amongst all this, were beech saplings, who had seemingly ignored autumn’s invitation to shed their leaves, defiantly holding on to them, almost as if to say that they were not yet ready for the onset of winter.

​Continuing beyond the birch trees takes you to Lochan na Dunaich, the ‘Little Loch of Sadness’, where a local tale has it that young children were lured into its waters by a Kelpie and never seen again. It is an inky black pool of water with fallen trees around its boggy edges, so you can well imagine this tale being used to warn children away from straying too close to it.

​Despite this somewhat disconcerting tale, I find the lochan to be an incredibly calming place. It sits in a natural bowl surrounded by tall trees and a steep hillside which shelters it from the worst of the weather. It was completely still on the morning I was there. Its surface perfectly mirrorlike, reflecting the surroundings in incredible detail. Surprisingly, it can be like that on the stormiest of days and on such days, a visit there can provide welcome respite from the turbulent drama of Loch Sunart, only a few hundred metres away. 

​As autumn departs and winter arrives, the trees are left bare and the colours of the woodlands on the Peninsula shift from warm hues of red, orange and yellow to a muted palette that seems to be dominated by the russet of the undergrowth, the silver of the lichen and the mauve of the birch tree twigs. This is something I first noticed on a winter walk in Ariundle Oakwood about 3 or 4 years ago.

​With this in mind, I visited Ariundle a couple of days after my wander around Lochan na Dunaich, while snow was still on the ground, albeit a fair amount of it had shifted as a result of daytime thaws, which is a common feature of the temperate climate here on the Peninsula. The weather was mixed, with morning sunshine gradually disappearing as the sky greyed.

​While I made my way into the woodland, admiring an oak that always catches my eye as I pass it, a heavy snow shower swept in. A curtain of white descended from the slate-grey sky in a matter of minutes, with large, swirling flakes tumbling through the air, creating a veil that softened the trunk and limbs of this ancient tree.

​The snow began to ease as I continued my walk into the woods, with the curtain of white lifting to reveal distant birch and oak trees on the far edge of the scrubland to the south of the path. Pausing for a moment, I picked out two of these trees using a long lens while the last of the snowflakes dotted the air in front of them. 

​Further on, a group of oaks stand on a mound that rises from the bogland that lies between the path and the Strontian River. I’ve photographed them a few times from various vantage points while they have been in leaf, but I have never been happy with the results. Undeterred, I decided to try again because their now skeletal forms seemed to stand out from the background more than they had done previously. 

​Continuing into the woods, I came to a place where innumerable beech saplings have sprung up beneath the ancient oaks that cover the hillside there. Their slender trunks and delicate branches support a crown of orange leaves that seemed to glow like embers against the muted tones around them, serving as a reminder of autumn’s lingering touch amid the starkness of a winter that was fast approaching. It is here where I ended my photowalk, turned around and made my way back home to the warmth that awaited me.

​As is usual, I first noticed the onset of the change in colours when yellow appeared on the pockets of birch trees scattered among the oak woodland around my home at Resipole. The most prominent of these can be found in the field on the north side of the road to Salen, near the car park for Sàilean nan Cuileag, where a group of these trees stand out from a backdrop of still green-leaved oak trees that are always last to change colour.

​The light from the morning sun falls on them from the east and emphasises the twisted shapes of their silver-barked trunks which contrast against the golden backdrop created by the yellow and orange leaves that hang on them.

In late afternoon, when the sun has moved around to the west, the trees are backlit and those silvery trunks now appear dark, almost black. However, the contrast of both colour and light means that they still stand out from the golden autumn foliage that surrounds them.

​You can also find groups of birch trees in the more shaded parts of the hillside, where darker and damper conditions have encouraged the growth of grey-green lichen that seems to drip from their branches. This lichen, usnea subfloridana, thrives on the acidic bark of birch trees and, for good reason, is known as 'old man’s beard'.

​Probably the most vivid autumn colour is the deep orange of fallen beech leaves and the woodland at Mingarry becomes carpeted in them at this time of the year. This creates a glorious display there, making it an ideal place to spend a couple of hours with the camera, especially when the morning sun breaks through the overhead canopy allowing dappled light to fall on the deeply coloured woodland floor.

​Allt nan Coinneal, or the Stream of Candles, runs parallel to a track that leads up through the beech woods to the ruins of High Mingarry and has a small waterfall part way up that I’ve passed countless times when walking the dog, but never stopped to photograph. However, on a dog walk this year, I noticed that the waterfall was scattered with golden coloured beech leaves, so I returned with the camera and spent an hour or so exploring it. I started with taking some wide shots of the whole fall using a patch of beech leaves caught in the rocks below it to anchor the composition, then changing to taking a series of close up shots of parts of it before finally leaving once I was happy that I had the images I was hoping for.

​Rowan trees seem to have been having a particularly good year, with their branches laden with a bountiful crop of bright red berries. I first noticed this on a walk down to Sàilean nan Cuileag when my eye was drawn to a swath of red berries and gold leaves that stood out from the dark, almost grey backdrop of trees that can be found on the western side of the bay. 

​Why so many berries I wondered? Well, it seems that rowan trees are subject to a natural phenomenon known as “masting” where they produce heavy crops of berries in some years and far fewer in others. If you want to know more about this, do check out the recent blog titled “Witchwood” in the Frame of Mind section of my website.

​Rowan trees were believed to have the power to ward off evil and were often planted next to homes, barns, and cattle pens to protect them from malevolent forces, and this year’s bountiful bright red crop has drawn my eye to many old buildings that have this "Tree of Protection” as a guardian. One example of this is an old byre by the road between Strontian and Polloch.

​The reason for me being on the road to Polloch was to visit Loch Doilet because, at this time of the year, steep hillsides that cradle it are covered with large swathes of golden larch that contrast beautifully with the green of the pine trees planted alongside them.

​Given the narrowness of the glen there, I found that the best way for me to get a wide perspective of the contrast in colours was to use the drone, flying it both above the loch and up the hillsides on either side of it.

​When using the drone, I took some expansive shots of the view towards each end of the loch before focusing on a few abstract shots that emphasised the contrast between the green and gold trees.

​With the drone shots completed, I turned to my camera and using a long lens, picked out some more intimate details of the trees from my vantage point at the side of the loch, with the first being of a pair of green pine trees completely surrounded by the larch catching the last of the afternoon’s light before it disappeared behind the hills to the west of me.

​Next was a closer shot of a row of silver-barked larch tree trunks on the other side of the loch, beautifully topped with a band of gold pine needles.

​To end, I focused on the larch trees that were near me, zooming in to capture the detail of strands of golden needles hanging from their branches.

​The final tree species to focus on was the oak. They can be found across the Peninsula, either mixed woodland with other native species or in the remnants of the ancient Atlantic oakwood that covers a large part of the northern shore of Loch Sunart. 

​They are always the last trees to change colour, but when they do, they produce an exquisite mix of yellow, gold and russet brown foliage to adorn their gnarled and twisted branches.

​A great example of this is on what is probably my favourite oak tree on the Peninsula, which can be found in the woodland near Salen. Although diminutive in size, it’s form seems perfectly balanced to me and it always catches my eye when I pass by it, no matter what time of the year. However, it is in late October that it is at its best, with vibrant autumn leaves shining out from the subdued woodland scrub that surrounds it.

​By the end of the month, the first of the winds of the winter storm season had stripped a lot of leaves from the trees and although this may be disappointing to some, it does mean that light can reach the floor of the deciduous woodland at Ariundle.

​When it does, the moss-covered boulders that can be found there are iridescent, giving off a lustrous and pearly sheen that changes in intensity as you wander through them. In such conditions, they seem magical to me and capable of harbouring mystical beings waiting to be unveiled.

​Indeed, the nearby village of Strontian derives its name from the mythological sídhe, a supernatural race comparable to the faeries or elves. In Scottish Gaelic, the village is called Sròn an t-Sìthein, which translates to ‘low round hill inhabited by the sídhe’, leaving me wondering if I had been under their watchful eye as I wandered through the woodland at the end of October’s photographic journey.

​My photographic month started on a calm evening when promising signs of a sunset encouraged me to take the drive from Resipole over to Kinlochmoidart to see if I could capture an image that I had long had in my head. It was one that I hoped would show Loch Moidart from a different perspective. A perspective that places the viewer facing westwards out of Loch Moidart with Eilean an Fheidh as the main subject, but also including Riska Island and Eilean Tioram with its eponymous Castle.
 
On arrival, the conditions were perfect. High tide had coincided with sunset and with no wind, the potentially muddy Loch Moidart was filled with completely still, sky-blue water within which Eilean an Fheidh and its associated skerries were nestled. As the sun dipped below the horizon, there was just the right amount of cloud above the western horizon to catch the pink, red, orange and yellow hues that were finding their way up into the sky. These colours bounced off the clouds and down onto the blue tinged mirror-like water that surrounded the islands.
 
Two different images were created.
 
The first was a single frame whose width I filled with Eilean an Fheidh and Riska Island, positioning the drone such that the distant Eilean Tioram and Castle Tioram could be seen beyond and separated from the vertical face of Sgriobaid Dubh on the mainland. 

​The second was a 6-frame stitched panorama that gives a wider composition that also included the mass of Beinn Bhreac to the south of Eilean an Fheidh and the side of Shona Beag to its north. It was also wide enough to capture the Small Isles of Eigg and Rùm silhouetted against the orange glow from the sun in a gap beyond the northern side of Eilean Shona.

​A few days later, I awoke to a thin veil of mist over Loch Sunart and as I watched the colours intensify as the sun rose, I decided to go in search of mist over at Loch Shiel which, from experience, holds far more mist than Loch Sunart ever does.

​However, on reaching Acharacle, I found that Loch Shiel was almost clear of mist, except for a thin veil that I could see beneath the distant hills of Ardgour. The mountains were silhouetted against a sky that had been turned a deep, rich orange by the rising sun. After pausing for a moment to consider what to do, I decided to move on towards Dorlin and Castle Tioram with the hope of finding the mist I was looking for.

​Thankfully, the short drive to Dorlin paid dividends and took me to a landscape that was shrouded in mist. Looking southwards back to where the River Shiel meets the sea at Shielfoot, patches of mist drifted across the river and the low-lying ground to the west of it, while in the opposite direction, Loch Moidart was covered in a thick blanket of mist that obscured Castle Tioram from view.

​However, as the sun continued to rise, the mist covering Loch Moidart began to clear and Castle Tioram emerged from its soft white blanket while wisps of mist lingered over the island upon which it sits. The effect of this was to create a beautiful and mystical scene that was best captured from the air.

​The mist continued to clear and eventually Castle Tioram became visible from ground level, so I made my way along the shore towards it, eventually reaching a spot from where I could place it in the centre of the frame and capture both it and its reflection in perfect symmetry. The mist came and went, so I stood a while before pressing the shutter button at a moment when the castle was completely clear of the mist and the slightest of warm morning light was falling on its east facing walls. A satisfying end to a great few hours chasing Moidart’s mist.

With the promise of some clear skies at night, I returned to Dorlin later that day for some astro-landscape photography. When I arrived, a bank of cloud was gradually moving north-westwards, leaving a clear sky behind it. Forever the optimist, I was hopeful that it was only matter of time before I would find myself under a clear, star filled sky. Before that though, I took time to capture some iPhone shots of the spectacular sunset that was enveloping Loch Moidart, watching its golden hues intensify before fading to blue and pink as the sun went down.

​Continuing to make my way along the estate road that skirts the edge of Loch Moidart I arrived at the subject for the image I had in my mind. It was a boat house that I’ve passed countless times while walking the dog and one which I thought would sit directly beneath the cloudy core of the Milky Way in the hour or so after dark during August and September. The timing was ideal because it was only a few days after a new moon. This meant two things. Firstly, there would be no moonlight to drown out the Milky Way, making it clearly visible to the naked eye and more importantly, the camera. Secondly, there was a high spring tide at about an hour after sunset, bringing the sea level up to cover much of the foreshore in front of the boathouse and simplify the composition. 

​Whilst it was still light, I experimented with various compositions and, by using a compass to determine where the Milky Way would be when it was dark enough to photograph it, I settled on a composition that used the cobbled surface of the sea wall as the leading line to the boat house which I positioned in the bottom left of the frame at an angle that would see the Milky Way above it. By this time, it was about an hour after sunset and with the camera now fixed in position, I had about an hour to wait until it would be dark enough to photograph the Milky Way.
 
It may seem to some as being a bit of a long wait, but this is the time I enjoy most about astro-landscape photography. With the camera set up and fixed in position you are free to simply enjoy the moment, to watch the stars appear one by one and to pick out the constellations as they gradually reveal themselves. It is in this moment that my thoughts often turn to consider how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. Consider this – our galaxy, the Milky Way, may contain 300 million potentially habitable planets and there are a total of 170 billion other galaxies in the Universe as a whole. With mind-blowing numbers like these, there surely must be the possibility of there being life beyond Earth.

​As the hour passes, I usually take test shots at regular intervals to check the light levels until I’m satisfied that it is dark enough for the camera to distinguish the Milky Way from its star filled backdrop and then, with one press of the shutter button I take my final shot, pack up and walk away satisfied that I’ve captured the image that I had in my mind’s eye.

​The start of the month was particularly cold wet and grey, making it challenging for me to motivate myself to get out with the camera. However, my cocker spaniel Fergus needs walked whatever the weather and, more often than not, I take a camera with us when we head out on our daily wander. One walk took us to Sailen nan Cuileag, a bay to the east of Salen on Loch Sunart and while Fergus and his nose explored the shoreline, I sat on a rock, watched yachts leaving their overnight mooring in Salen Bay and took a few photographs of them as they were carried down the Loch by a light north westerly breeze.

As the days passed, the cold, grey and dull conditions persisted, so my outings continued to be limited to when Fergus and I were out on walks. One day, when we were at Kentra Bay at low tide, making the most of running about the vast sands (Fergus, not me!!) that appear when the bay empties, I spotted a lone sea urchin shell sitting amongst the sea pinks that cover the salt marsh there in June. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I made a mental note of the location and decided to come back in the evening to photograph it because the forecast was for the cloud to clear a little. 

However, when returned that evening, the clouds remained and the light that I was hoping for was not there. Nevertheless, I took a few shots of the sea urchin shell, some close up and some of the wider view before eventually deciding that my favoured composition was of it sitting amongst the sea pinks in the foreground with Ben Resipole under an imposing, cloud filled sky as a backdrop.

The drive home from there takes me through Acharacle and past a tin shed that sits at the end of a croft field. It is something that I have driven by countless times, but on this occasion, a thick blanket of bright yellow buttercups that covered the field caught my eye and drew my attention to the contrasting colours of the tin shed. The sight of this beautifully colourful scene was most welcome on such a dull grey evening, so I turned the van around, found somewhere to park and took a few photographs of it.
​
As the month progressed, one thing that has struck me this year was the number of foxgloves that were appearing. Their tall purple spires of bell shape flowers seemingly rising above every dense blanket of bracken that I have come across. Their size and colour make them visually striking plants and provide ideal subjects with which to anchor your composition and I used them for to this effect at Castle Tioram and Camas nan Geall.
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​My final photography outing of the month took me to Samalaman Bay near Glenuig on an evening when the sun eventually made an appearance. To make the most of this, I decided to spend a few hours there to watch the tide go out and the sun go down.
 
When I arrived, the sun was still reasonably high in the sky, so I focussed my attention on an upturned row boat that seems to have taken up a long term residence amongst the water lilies there. I started with wider shots of the boat and the bay with the jagged peaks of the Isle of Rùm in the distance before turning my attention to some close-up shots of the boat and the lilies.

Worryingly, cloud began to roll in from the east as sunset approached but I remained hopeful that there would be a sufficient gap between the clouds and the western horizon to allow the sun to cast some light on the landscape. I wasn’t disappointed because eventually the sun dipped below the clouds and bathed the sands that had been uncovered by the falling tide with a beautifully warm and golden light. 

I photographed the bay and the sands until the sun dropped behind the Small Isles of Eigg and Rùm before taking a final shot of these islands silhouetted against an intensely orange coloured sky. I left Samalaman Bay satisfied with what I had captured and with the thought that this must be one of the best places on the Peninsula to experience a midsummer sunset. 

​On the way home the following morning, I stopped off at Ardmolich at the head of Loch Moidart to photograph a vast swathe of cottongrass that had caught my eye on the drive out to Glenuig. This plant is actually not a grass, but a sedge and it thrives in acidic, waterlogged soil such as that found there. It’s distinctive white, fluffy seed heads covered the ground, providing me with plenty of photographic opportunities and a productive stop with which to end my last photo trip of the month.

​My first outing took me to Phemie’s Walk near Strontian and to my favourite place in the woods there. It is a place well off the path where a stand of magnificent birch trees creates an almost cathedral like space and on the morning I was there, their leaves were backlit to create an incredibly iridescent canopy that covered the space around me and tinged the trunks and branches of the trees with a beautiful green hue.

​A couple of weeks later and the leaves on the ancient oak trees that cover the hillside around my house at Resipole had well and truly made their spring entrance as well. This, along with the greening up of the previously dry and russet scrubland, had turned this part of Sunart into a verdant oasis and provide me an opportunity to use the drone to capture the ‘spring green’ from a different perspective.

​One of the things that always fascinates me, when I’m flying the drone above the oakwoods with the camera facing downwards, is how distinct each of the trees can be. When you’re on the ground looking up through the tree canopy it seems to blanket the entire sky, yet looking down, reveals gaps and lines where the trees seem almost afraid to touch each other. This is a phenomenon called ‘crown shyness’ which is thought to be caused by the trees detecting a frequency of visible light called far-red light, which can tell them how close they are to their neighbours. When they sense they are close, they stop growing and thereby maintain their exposure to light and optimise the process of photosynthesis.

​I had a second outing with the drone in the hope of capturing more soft evening light on the trees, but this time around the bay that is Sàilean nan Cuileag, a mile or so east of Salen. However, despite the conditions looking hopeful, cloud rolled in from the northeast meaning that I had to content myself with a couple of shots of the bay that were more subdued that I had envisaged. 

​Both images show the bay at high tide, filled with seawater and therefore at its most attractive for ariel photography. The first is looking out of the bay, southwest down Loch Sunart, while the second is looking northeast into the bay and back towards Ben Resipole and is perhaps my favourite image from the month, probably because I feel it captures so much of a place I’m lucky to be able to call home.

​February, the last month of meteorological winter, proved to be less stormy than January but what it lacked in wind was certainly made up in rain. Looking at my weather station, it was the second wettest February I’ve experienced since moving to the Peninsula in 2016, with almost 200mm of rain in the month, and over half of that falling in the first week. The sheer volume of rain falling onto already saturated ground over such a short period of time meant that both the River Shiel and Loch Shiel were as high as I’ve ever seen them.
 
I was keen to record this, so I headed up to the bridge that crosses the River Shiel just to the north-west of Acharacle to see what I could photograph. On the morning I was there, the rain had eventually stopped and the rising sun occasionally shone through the breaks in the cloud that were beginning to appear. This first image I took were of the bridge silhouetted against the warm morning light and I then turned my attention to picking out some of the trees downstream of it, that were sitting submerged in a few feet of water.

​A couple of mornings later, I returned to Acharacle, but rather than photographing the bridge again, I decided to focus on Loch Shiel and the submerged fences that were in the flooded fields close to the Shielbridge Hall in the centre of the village. I was there just before sunrise, hoping for some colour to appear in the sky but high-level cloud cover prevented this and instead the landscape was bathed in some beautifully subtle, soft and warm light. This was perfect for the shots I ended up taking.

​Upon finishing exploring the submerged fence posts, my attention turned to the various patches of ice that had formed along the water’s edge as a result of overnight sub-zero temperatures. Indeed, I was very appreciative of my liner gloves and woollen mitts, packed with charcoal hand warmers, which were keeping my fingers warm while the mercury still hovered around the -2°C mark. There were some fascinating wafers of ice suspended above the surface of the loch by tussocks of grass, presumably left because the water level in the loch was falling now that the rain had stopped for a couple of days.

​As well as these suspended wafers of ice, the curving water's edge near the Shielbridge Hall played host to a myriad of intricately frosted blades of grass that formed the boundary between the frozen field and the frozen loch. They were a joy to photograph.

​The middle of the month was dominated by misty, grey days which are best described as being “smirry”. You see, “smirr” is an Old Scots word for a delicate form of rain or a misty drizzle that lingers in the air and that’s certainly what we had. On days like that, woodlands are a good place to go for taking photos, so I decided to take my camera on a wander around the 4km loop at Ariundle Oakwood which takes you up the side of the Strontian River and back down through the ancient oaks that can be found there. 

​Despite the greyness of the day, there was still some colour to be found as my eye was drawn to the contrasts between the orange hues of the winter undergrowth, the purple tinge of the bare branches of stands of silver birch trees and the silvery grey of the lichen covered branches off the gnarly oak trees.

​However, as always, the thing that catches my eye most when I take a walk through the oakwoods is the combination of thick and twisted oak tree trunks and branches surrounded by large and rounded moss covered boulders. There’s something quite enchanting about this sight and I think that it is little wonder that folklore has it that the boulders are home to faeries that live in the woods.

My next outing with the camera took me to Sàilean nan Cuileag, a small bay on Loch Sunart, just to the east of Salen. It’s not far from my house, so it is a place I often take the dog for a walk and on the countless times I’ve been there I’ve crossed a small stream that cuts across the path on the way down to the bay. I’ve never paid much attention to it but on this occasion, I stopped and spent some time taking some close-up shots of the water flowing over the red tinged stones that can be found in the streambed. I had never noticed them before, so the experience reminded me of what you can see if you take the time to slow down and really look at something.

After photographing the streambed, I continued my walk down to the bay with the intention of photographing the stream as it flowed into the sea at high tide. I took a few shots of the scene I had in my mind, but the dullness of the evening meant that I didn’t get anything I was happy with. Instead, I turned my attention to taking some close-up shots of the trees that fringe the bay. They comprise a mixture of larch and oak, whose bare branches were covered with silvery grey lichen just like those I photographed at Ariundle Oakwood a week or so earlier.

​From all of the images above, you will see that February has been quite a grey and colourless month, but thankfully as both the end of the month and the end of meteorological winter approached, the weather began to improve and we were treated to a couple of colourful sunsets. During one of these, I was looking eastwards, out of the kitchen window, just as beautifully warm light fell on a snow capped Fuar Bheinn, a 2514-foot-high Corbett that is one of a horseshoe of peaks that circles Glen Galmadale over on Kingairloch Estate.

​It was such a beautiful sight, so I just had to grab my camera, rush outdoors and capture the scene before the light disappeared as the sun dipped below the hills behind and to the west of me. After this, I stayed by the loch side for a while and watched the colours of the loch, sky and landscape change as the sun set and took the following image which shows the view looking westwards down Loch Sunart from Resipole. This rich orange glow of a late winter sunset was a perfect and spectacular end to a month, which for the most part, had been a dull and grey one.