Best UK photography locations (where you can still avoid the crowds)
May 25, 2021
With travel abroad still looking uncertain this year, top landscape pros compile a new bucket list of great locations in Britain that avoids the obvious honeypots and camera-wielding staycation crowds
Scotland
Eilean Bàn (White Island)
This six-acre island (situated between the Isle of Skye and mainland Scotland) is a haven for wildlife with otters, seals, cormorants, shags and herons regularly sighted from its shoreline.
Eilean Bàn is the former home of author Gavin Maxwell and, as such, there is a museum dedicated to him close to the water’s edge. The island supports one of the struts of Skye Bridge and has its own lighthouse, offering plenty of opportunities for wildlife, landscape and architecture images.
Alison Roberts reports on BATS: Wharfedale Naturalists final webinar of the autumn/winter season DO you love them? Do you hate them? Are they the silent nymphs of a summer’s night as they fly across your garden or do they make you shudder? They often get a bad press so to set the record straight with a fascinating insight into the activities and behaviour of bats the Wharfedale Naturalists were delighted to welcome two bat devotees and serious scientists: Greg Slack, a consultant ecologist specialising in bats and Matt Whittle, consultant ecologist and Wharfedale Naturalists committee member. We all know that bats are the only flying mammals but did we know that the UK is home to 18 species of bats (Worldwide some 1,300 species) - 25% of UK mammal species, the tiny pipistrelle being the commonest. Weighing in at about 5 grams it can still consume up to 3,000 small insects in a night.
Peta Constable reports on the Wharfedale Naturalists Webinar, March 10, 202: The importance of WNS species reports: Birds and Butterflies IF, like me, the first sighting of a butterfly in the garden or a charismatic female Goosander and her young on the Wharfe, gives a feeling that some things are still right with the world, you will appreciate the huge contribution made by our Society’s recorders to the knowledge of what is and isn’t present in our local patch on an annual basis. They collate and analyse thousands of records of sightings they and others provide and then write detailed reports on the local flora and fauna. These reports give an invaluable view of the plant and animal life in both Upper and Lower Wharfedale, and enable us to gain valuable insights into annual trends over many years.