July 2026

July was always a month I'd bookmarked for work in my garden. I'm away a lot when guiding on Mull, so especially in spring, things seem to grow at a turbo-charged rate. It was like a jungle by June.

So when I wasn't gardening, I would pop out locally. One place I enjoy visiting in the summer is the Abernethy Forest, an area sadly in the news lately from a massive wild fire. Given that there are signs everywhere about not having campfires or BBQs, people seem to think that their fire is ok, and all hell breaks loose.

Anyway, thankfully the latest one didn't torch the areas I love visiting, and one of these is a small pool where dragonflies buzz around in warm conditions. Whilst trying to photo them in flight, I spotted something larger zipping around late afternoon, and realised it was a bat.

Great fun to photograph given their size, speed and how quickly they change direction, but the combination of a focus zone on my Canon R5 mk2 and the reliable RF100-500mm lens, yielded some decent results.

This was my favourite.