Kintyre Peninsula, Argyll & Bute. - A nature lovers paradise

Earlier in 2018, I was lucky enough to spend a week in Kintyre (Argyll & Bute). Kintyre is a peninsula in south west Scotland that extends for some 40 miles from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to Tarbert in the north. The peninsula is never much more than ten miles wide and at Tarbert, the land preventing the rest of Kintyre becoming an island is just a mile across. This is where West Loch Kintyre bites deeply into the peninsula and only just fails to meet East Loch Tarbert, around which Tarbert's harbour is built.

The wide variety of wildlife to be found on Kintyre is quite simply breathtaking and my list of targets for the week included Seals, Otters, Gannetts, Puffins, Cormorants, Shags and of course, the Golden Eagle!

My wife and myself rented a small cottage from the 'Landmark Trust' in 'Saddell Bay' (the location for the music video for Paul McCartney's ' Mull of Kintyre'). Located just yards from the beach, we arrived to find Hundreds of Gannetts feeding just offshore and within sight of their roost on Ailsa Craig.

The following images were all taken with my Nikon D500 with Nikon 200-500 f4 lens.

Watchings these birds dive for sand eels was simply amazing!

To the south of Kintyre, you will find Carskey Bay, which is a favourite spot to find seals basking on the rocks at low tide. The area is very rocky, but having battled my way across 50 mtrs of seaweed covered rocks, I was gradually able to crawl my way closer and ended up just a few meters away from these beautiful creatures.

Seals at Carskey Bay

At Machrihanish, you will find the Seabird Observatory and the very knowledgable warden, Eddie Maguire. I spent many hours at this location and photographed a wide range of birds, including these below:

This Oyster Catcher had a piece of sheeps fleece attached to its leg.

These chicks literally hatched whilst I was watching!

Beautifully camouflaged amongst the pebbles

Sea Otters are a rare sight, even on Kintyre, so when I was told of a sighting literally in Saddell Bay, I lost no time in camping myself on a small headland and settled down for a lengthy wait. After 4 hours, I had given up and was heading back, when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye........a breeding pair! - I managed to muffle a scream of delight and quickly set up my gear to rattle off some shots, before they disappeared again. I searched daily for them afterwards, but never saw them again. - I consider myself very privileged to have watched them for around half-an-hour!

Last two images show the otter feeding on a crab

Every bend in the road on Kintyre has a surprise waiting and on our way back from the Gin distilliary near Carradale (Highly Recommended), we turned the corner to find this Heron on the waters edge. Seems that not only Otters like crabs!

On the other side (West) of the peninsula, lies 'Shag Stack'. A nesting site for these wonderful birds that is just off the side of the road and easily accessible.

Every group has an exhibitionist! 

Just offshore and South of Kintyre, lies Sanda Island, which is the home of thousands of seabirds including my 'target bird'...the Puffin! Although you can no longer land on Sanda Island (it is now privately owned), you can get a boat trip around the Island from the quay at Campbeltown. This is on board a 'fast rib', which whilst being great fun, can make using a 500mm lens quite entertaining! To be fair, the skipper of 'Mull of Kintyre Seatours' looks after photographers very well, but trying to capture a small bird with a long lens when on board a rocking boat is not easy.

All of the above photographed from the rib.

Sometimes, things just don't go your way! After two days tracking the Golden Eagles and trekking around 4 miles up into the hills, we had to accept that this was the best shot we were going to achieve. The closest we could get was around 400 mtrs away and not even my 500mm lens was going to give me the images I wanted on this trip. - Having said that, a bad picture is sometimes better than no picture at all, so here it is.......our Golden Eagle! 

Not many people ever get to see a Golden Eagle, let alone photograph one in its own habitat. The experience will live with me forever.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit Kintyre, grab it with both hands and explore every inch of it. Wildlife photography is never easy, but to have such diversity of wildlife in just a 45 sq mile area is rare indeed.

I look forward to returning many times.

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