Taken on Monday morning at Loch Tulla.

Having done a fair bit of research on the 'net for this location I was pleased that all my efforts came together as far as finding the place in the pitch black and icy roads.

I did encounter a few problems that one cannot predict when one hasn't visited a location in person before.

I had to scale a 5 foot fence to get into the field that led down to the loch. I then had to negotiate a half mile trek through thigh high frozen grass (complete with random bogs thrown in for measure).

It was also dark and minus five but felt more like minus ten.

Anyway, after setting up for this shot knee deep in freezing water (good job I brought the wellies), I had a very strange and sinsiter feeling that I was being watched...

I looked behind and there was a full blown Stag about 5 metres from where I was standing. I don't know who got more of a fright, me or him and I didn't know if he wanted to eat me or mate with me.

As I had a wide angle lens attached I akwardly reached into my backpack to switch to a longer lens. So far so good.... I now had nowhere to put my backpack down so I could take off the filter kit and put that somewhere (as I was surrounded by water) so took a couple of steps to my right.

Although I was moving incredibly slowly and was talking to the beast in the way someone does when they're calling their cat in for tea, he wasn't having any of it and trotted off in search of some female companion or food, or both.

A wasted opportunity? Not for me as that's probably the closest I will ever get to one of these great animals.

But I didn't hang round much after this just in case he was off to get his mates...

Tags: Scotland Snow Winter Ice Scottish Water Sunrise Mountain Lake Trees Woods Highlands Mist Loch tulla Forrest Landscape and travel Bridge of orchy Night and low light

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