VIDEO: Isle of May Landing Trip

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A couple of weeks ago I made my annual landing trip out to the Isle of May off the coast of Dunbar on the border of the North Sea and the Firth of Forth.

 The Isle of May is home to over 200,000 seabirds and is well worth a visit for anyone interested in the world of nature.  The boat trips are run by the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick and the island is maintained by Scottish Natural Heritage.




 Taking the fast RIB from North Berwick harbour the trip out took around 25-minutes.  When we landed we were met by one of the wardens, who gave us a quick talk about the dos and don'ts while on the island and then we had the choice of joining our guide or take ourselves off around the small island.

 Because this was my third trip out to the Isle of May I and my fellow photographers headed up to the north of the island to see if we could find some Puffins before the other two boats from Anstruther docked bringing a lot more people onto the island.  

 The spot I had in mind wasn't as busy I imagined but this was due to the prevailing winds and when we moved over to the east of the island we discovered the air was filled with Puffins some flying back to their burrows with a beak full of sand eels.

Then began the hard task of trying to photograph these extremely quick and nimble birds in flight using the Fujifilm X-T2 and XF100-400mm lens.  I was happy to say that the X-T2's superb AF system was, once again, more than up to the job.

While they are the star of the show, there are a lot more birds on the Isle of May other than the Puffins, se then headed to the south of the island for the final hour of our visit. Here we found Cormorants, Shags, Guillemots, Eider Ducks, Razorbills, Kittewakes and various Gulls.   

 We then headed back to the boat for the trip back to North Berwick via a short stop at Bass Rock.

 This annual trip to the Isle of May is worth every effort and I love the peace and tranquility of the island, which has so much to photograph during the 3 hours we were there.

All of the images were shot on the Fujifilm X-T2 with either the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6, XF50-140mm f2.8 or the XF10-24mm f4.

 The video was shot on the Fujifilm X-T2 or a GoPro Hero 5 Black and a Karma stabiliser grip.

 For more information on the boat trips organised by the Scottish Seabird Centre visit www.seabird.org

 For more information on Scottish Natural Heritage visit www.snh.gov.uk 







































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ALL IMAGES (UNLESS INDICATED) ARE THE PROPERTY OF MACLEAN PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION

MacLean Photographic run Tours and Workshops in East Lothian and the Borders of Scotland.  CLICK HERE for more details and availability


Jeff Carter is an Official Fujifilm X Photographer and was named as a Fujifilm brand ambassador in June 2015. In 2016 he worked with the company on the launches of the Fujifilm X-Pro2 in Tokyo and the Fujifilm X-T2 in Paris in July 2016.  You can view his profile and gallery on the Fujifilm website HERE

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