The Ayrshire Coast (Stranraer to Girvan)

The view out to Ailsa Craig.

After exploring around Rockcliffe, we drove out west to the Ayrshire coast. The road from Stranraer to Girvan follows the shore very closely, and has plenty of large parking places which make it really easy to stop and have a look around. I've found this stretch of coastline to be pretty good for seabirds in the past, and it didn't disappoint this time around either!

We stopped at Carleton Bay, close to Lendalfoot.

The bit we stopped in this time was close to Lendalfoot at Carleton Bay - if you follow the signs for the Russian naval memorial you'll find it. Being relatively close to Ailsa Craig, it's also usually a good area to look for gannets, and this time was no exception.

This is a composite image (obviously. No-one gets this lucky!), of a gannet diving just off the beach. It took longer to make than I'd like to admit!

Of course, early summer is also the time when eider ducks breed, and usually hatch their chicks in late May - early June. This is a lot earlier than most of the other seabirds will be hatching their chicks, so if you go to any of the big seabird colonies like the Isle of May or the Farne Islands, they can be easy to miss if you're not on the ball. Anyway, eider ducklings have been on my photography wishlist for a while now, and I was pretty pleased to find that there were quite a few groups of them around this patch of coastline, and pretty delighted to spot the little ducklings in amongst the adults!

Eider ducks fighting about something while a bunch of seals look on in the background. 

So delighted that I didn't actually notice there were a group of common seals basking just offshore until I looked at the photos later on my computer!

An eider duck family settling in for a nap. The duckling is just visible underneath its mum (the brown one).

Eventually, one pair of eiders came into the shore with a chick and settled down in a rather photogenic fashion for a snooze, and I finally got my first decent photo of an entire eider duck family!

An oystercatcher exploring the shore.

Of course, that's not all there was to shoot. A group of shags were making good use of an exposed line of rocks to rest on for the evening, and a rather bold oystercatcher was happy to pose for a few photos before wandering off again!

30 shags sitting on a rock...

Wildlife in the Wind and Rain

The change from summer to autumn has not been subtle this year. Over the course of the last week we've gone from warm, sunny summery days to ... well, today! As always, please click on the images to see them properly.

I can't imagine why no-one was sitting on that bench...

Still, bad weather can make for some cool conditions to take photographs in. A lot of wildlife won't come out when the weather is really bad, but one of the nice things about photographing coastal and marine wildlife is that a little bit of wind and rain doesn't tend to faze them very much!

Breaking waves hammering the seawall at Troon.

So despite the forecast, today we headed south of Glasgow to check out the beaches at Troon (one of my regular spots), Irvine and Ardrossan and see what we could spot. The tides shouldn't have been that great for getting close to the birds (it was low water around lunchtime), but the horrible weather had forced plenty of them high up the shore so we had some nice opportunities. Along the shore we had turnstones and redshanks:

Turnstone on the beach at Troon

Redshank on the shore

I was hoping to find eider ducks sheltering from the weather at the harbour, but they were apparently elsewhere today. There were eight grey seals hanging around though:

Grey seals in the fishing harbour

Of course, it was at this point in proceedings that my trusty 7D + 300mm F4L + 1.4x T.C. combination reached the limits of its weather-sealing abilities and stopped working. No screen, no autofocus, no buttons... Oops. Fortunately a towel dry and a few minutes on the car heater seemed to fix it so hopefully there's no lasting damage. At least it was freshwater for a change too! Of course, that wasn't the only thing I did to the camera today...

After Troon we headed further up the coast to Irvine just in time for the sun to break through for a few minutes.

The beach at Irvine

Having spotted a couple of eider ducks, I decided to test my new walking shoes and climb down the seawall to get down to the beach for a closer view. Neither the boots nor the photo worked particularly well unfortunately and I have a couple of rather large new dents in the camera (and my arm). It still works though, so happy days!

Another couple of war wounds to add to the collection. I suspect I'll never, ever be able to sell this camera second hand. Ever. 

The eider duck photos turned out to be pretty boring in the end, but fortunately a curlew came to the rescue and stood in the sea spray and sunshine for a little while:

A curlew in the waves

After this set I decided I'd left enough blood and camera metal on the shore at Irvine for one day and we headed back to Glasgow via Ardrossan and Largs past some more promising looking beaches which I will check out next time I have a free day.

So all in all it was a pretty successful day out really! Nothing broken, nothing (very) flooded and a few decent photos to show for it. I might wrap the camera in a plastic bag next time right enough.

New Zealand Part 3: Akaroa

The speed machine!

So after a couple of days in Abel Tasman, I headed down to Christchurch to pick up a hire car and then it was off to Akaroa, which is a small town nestled on the west coast of the South Island in the crater of an extinct volcano. The middle of the crater is well below sea level and is open to the south, which creates a large natural harbour (Akaroa in Maori means 'long harbour') which in turn makes it a great place to see a huge variety of coastal wildlife, even in the town itself.

Canada geese on the shore in the town.

A Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius) in a tree in the town centre. 

One of the attractions of Akaroa as a place to view wildlife is the presence of a pod of 1000 Hector's Dolphins, which are one of the smallest and rarest species of dolphins in the world and are exceptionally cute! So on my day in Akaroa I booked a trip out on a wildlife tour boat to go and see them for myself, and I wasn't disappointed! 

A Hector's Dolphin popping up to breathe.

Three Hector's Dolphins swimming by our boat.

And as well as the dolphins in the main harbour area, further out along the coast there was plenty more to see:

A spotted cormorant making a surface dive

A blue penguin. These little birds are extremely rare and skittish around the boats - we managed to sneak up  on this  one while it was on the surface between dives, but most didn't stay around long!

A male fur seal, snoozing regally on the rocks.

A mother seal sleeping near her new pup.

After a far-too-short couple of hours on the boat, we headed back to shore and I took the chance to drive around some of the little single-track roads running around the summit of the crater and out to some of the more hidden beaches around the outer coast of the peninsula. The views were absolutely stunning!

Looking out to sea from the summit road around the Akaroa peninsula.

Looking out to sea over Le Bons bay.