University is about pushing oneself, that’s for sure. I definitely pushed myself a lot in second year, and in no module more so than Expedition. The brief was left open for us to do pretty much whatever we wanted, provided that we produced a piece of media and stayed for at least 3 nights. Some of my course-mates went by boat to Arran. Some decided (in a fit of madness, I presume) to walk the coast-to-coast trail. One even went to France!
Me? I decided that I would undertake an 8-day expedition to Keith in Scotland to make a 5-part web-series about the local wildlife called The Local Patch Project.
Nothing like stretching oneself, eh?
Preparation
As I’m sure you can imagine, doing something like this requires a huge amount of preparation of crew, gear and transport. Crew ended up being simple enough, just myself and my sister. Sarah made an excellent presenter, and was very helpful carrying various bits and pieces across the region.
We had quite a lot of gear with us, but there was no way we could have cut down on what we took. I was delighted to have the chance to use one of the university’s GH5 cameras; it’s such a wonderful piece of kit! We also had the joy of using various bits of audio equipment and a GoPro. It was all a bit of a learning curve for me, as I was suddenly running everything as opposed to just producing.
Transport was key for this trip, as we had no car (neither of us can drive). I spent many hours poring over the National Rail website working out the best way to get where we need to go. This was 100% worthwhile as our transport was just so easy when we got there.
But enough about the prep – you want to know what happened.
The Expedition
We arrived a couple of days in advance of when we were due to start filming, giving us plenty of time to get acquainted with the area and its wildlife. It also gave us ample opportunity to road test all the equipment. Getting to use the GoPro was particularly fun – especially when we made it into Sarah-Cam (sadly the Sarah-Cam footage didn’t make it into the final cut, but I’m working on a vlog and hopefully we’ll get a little bit in there!).
Day 1 – Keith
Our first day was spent in Keith itself. The morning was dedicated to getting urban shots, and laying down the information that builds the backbone of The Local Patch Project; why there is a national disconnect with nature. It was lovely to walk around the town and see how much nature there was.
We headed up to Dunnyduff Woods in the afternoon to check out the stunning Falls of Tarnash. We also scouted out some potential sites for our camera trap – hunting for mammal trails, food remains and footprints. We had wanted to go to the Balloch, where we were more likely to get wildcats, but our schedule was already so full there was just no way we could manage it. Another time, perhaps!
Day 2 – Nairn
We caught the train and arrived early. We decided it would be best to split our time by filming some of the other sections of the episode on the beach and seawall before the boat trip. We saw some lovely wildlife on the beach, including one of my favourite wading birds – redshanks! Sarah struggled with the sun a bit, but she put up with it all like a champ.
I pride myself on being a well-organised person. When putting together the kit-list I made sure that spare batteries was in bold and underlined because they were so important. So, when the microphone died, I wasn’t too worried… until I opened my rucksack and found that I’d managed to leave them at the house.
What an idiot!
Thankfully Nairn is a pretty busy town so I wasn’t too panicked. I left Sarah to buy us fish and chips while I hared it up the high street looking for some replacements. Batteries were acquired, chips were eaten and we made our way down to the harbour for the main part of the day – a boat trip onto the Moray Firth with Phoenix Sea Adventures.
We boarded the pontoon Futuristic and headed out into the heart of the Firth. There was so much wildlife out on the open water, including a seal that regarded us from a distance. The weather was absolutely beautiful – I hadn’t dared to dream of such gorgeous sunshine (we were in Scotland after all!). We arrived at the halfway point of the trip and the crew killed the engines. We floated, holding our breath and hoped and hoped and hoped that we’d catch a glimpse of a dolphin.
There was a cry of delight from the other side of the boat and we darted round to catch a glimpse of two fins arching out of the water. Dolphins! We watched the pair swim around us for a while, at one-point swimming straight towards our boat. I was transfixed – my first ever dolphins, and I was praying so hard that the footage would come out alright! Sadly, the magic couldn’t last forever and they vanished out of sight.
We hung around the spot for a little while longer in case they came back, but we couldn’t stay – the wind was picking up and we had to head back to the harbour. The crew gave us the chance to drive the boat, which Sarah and I both took up eagerly – how often does a chance like that come around? The swell increased and the skipper took back the helm and guided us safely back into Nairn. An incredible trip!
Once filming was completed (reshooting the parts where the microphone had failed) we headed back to the station, still in awe of all that we had seen. I reviewed the footage on the platform and did a little victory dance when I saw how well it had all come out.
But the day’s excitement wasn’t over yet! The permission to deploy the camera traps in Dunnyduff Woods finally came through. Determined to have them out for as much time as possible we headed out as soon as we’d eaten. The sun was setting and the woods looked absolutely stunning. As we made our way down the hill, towards the bridge, I spotted some movement out of the corner of my eye.
A pair of roe deer!
I love roe deer anyway, but in the light of the sunset they looked beautiful. We watched them for a few minutes, and managed to capture a bit on my vlogging camera before they disappeared into the treeline. What a treat for the end of a very exciting day!
Day 3 – The Highland Wildlife Park
I really wanted to go to the Highland Wildlife Park. Like really, really wanted to go. They had wildcats. And seeing as I was hoping that The Local Patch Project would focus on this species, going somewhere that we could guarantee to film them was ideal. Unfortunately, it isn’t in Moray. And we didn’t have a car.
Thanks to the innumerable hours I spent researching public transport I figured that we could do it – but we would only have very short window to get everything done once we were there. And if we missed any of our connections, we were right royally screwed.
We headed down to the station at Keith on the anxious-side of early and discovered, to our horror, that the train to Inverness was already running 7 minutes late. We boarded, and gradually watched as the delay got longer and longer. We knew that the connection had been tight – but would it now be too tight? I looked up the platform for our departure. Would it be close to our arrival? Or would we be sprinting across the station?
Would we make it?
Fate smiled on us. We arrived with 2 minutes to spare and found, to our delight and relief, that the next train was on the next platform to us. We dashed over, found some seats and laughed. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to catch a train. This journey took us to Aviemore, through the Cairngorms and the views were just incredible. Another place to add to the ‘Must Come Back Again’ list. We caught at bus from Aviemore and were deposited right outside the Highland Wildlife Park.
It was only a short walk before we caught a glimpse of our first animals! We paused to record our introduction before heading on into the park itself. The walkway took us through the Scottish species area, and we caught sight of some sleeping wildcats! We decided to grab some lunch and make a plan as to how best use our time, to ensure that we got all the coverage we needed.
We started with the wildcats, getting footage of them in their enclosures, and recording Sarah’s pieces to camera. We then headed out to get shots of the rest of the park, including Hamish – the famous polar bear! It was great to see the breadth of species there, and find out more about the great work of HWP and the RZSS. Sadly, there was loads that we just had to film, and we really didn’t have time to look at all the animals we would have liked if we had been regular visitors. Definitely worth a repeat visit at some stage.
We made our way back down to the bus, but I insisted we stop by the wildcats to get some more footage. This turned out to be an excellent suggestion as the felines were much more active than they had been earlier in the day. I was absolutely delighted by the footage that we got! Then Sarah reminded me that we had a bus to catch, and we raced back down the hill. We caught it! There was a brief stop in Aviemore, with enough time to get ice cream, before we got the train back to Keith. A very long and exhausting day, but well worth it for the results!
Day 4 – Portgordon
Seals are one of my favourite animals. In the water, they’re sleek and 100% adapted for the environment. On land, however, they’re just so funny! So, when we heard that there was a colony of seals at Portgordon, we knew that there was no way we wouldn’t feature them in The Local Patch Project. Based on the information we’d been given we arrived at the beach shortly before the seals were due to arrive on the beach.
Alas, the seals had other ideas. They were already there!
No matter – they were still great fun to film. There was also plenty for us to do while we were there; rock pools to explore, sand to run in and plenty of litter to pick. I decided that doing a 2-minute beach clean would be great to include in the show, so I timed Sarah as she ran up and down the putting litter in her bag. Considering that it was such an isolated spot we were very surprised that we collected as much as we did – including a paintbrush and a rusty bird feeder!
This was probably the quickest shoot we did, and we discovered that we had the whole afternoon to ourselves. To celebrate, we stopped off in Fochabers to sample some of the ice cream that our family had raved about when they were last there. Their rave reviews were right – scrumptious!
Day 5 – Keith
The last day of filming! As we were focusing so much on the wildlife of the town itself, we decided to swing by the library and do our research. Turns out, the place is absolutely full of wildlife! The river is home to a variety of fish, the town is full of birds, and there are even quite a few mammals around the place.
The afternoon was spent filming around the town itself, trying to capture the juxtaposition of the wildlife in an urban setting. My favourite shot had to be of a feral pigeon perching on a road sign – I reckon it sums up urban wildlife in a single frame! Sarah got to do plenty of walking-talking shots, and I happily collected loads of footage of the town itself as it has been somewhat neglected so far with all our travelling.
We headed into Dunnyduff Woods to collect our final shots. We considered going to fetch in our camera trap, but as we’d been delayed a day putting it up, we thought it best to leave it out for another night. Knowing our luck, a wildcat would have walked right on by and we would have missed it!
The evening was spent packing, and reviewing all the footage we had. I realised that we were lacking in a couple of areas, but we still had Saturday morning so there was no need to panic. We went to bed early, satisfied that we would have what we needed by the time we caught the bus home.
The Journey Home
We were up bright and early to accomplish all the tasks we’d set ourselves the previous night. The house was tidied in record time and then we headed out to wrap up the last of The Local Patch Project. We grabbed the camera trap, and decided it would be best to check that we’d actually gotten something on it so we could film something else if we hadn’t managed it. Our efforts had been rewarded! No wildcats, but we had a great clip of a roe deer which was well worth it!
With the camera trap collected, and the final footage captured, we set out on the last leg of our adventure – the journey home. This proved to be a lot trickier than coming up. We got well and truly stuck in Aberdeen. The first train was cancelled and the second train wasn’t announced until it pulled out of the station! Realising that there was no way we could get to Edinburgh to make our intended connection, we decided to head over to Glasgow and get a direct train from there. Pros of this: we got to see a new city! Cons: we were delayed getting back to Carlisle by 4 hours!
Not gonna lie, but that was rough.
To conclude! The trip was an outstanding success. We had a great deal of fun travelling around Scotland looking for wildlife, and filming as we went. This was a massive learning curve for me, but I actually enjoyed the pressure of filming, recording sound and directing. I’d definitely do things differently next time, but under the circumstances I think I did a really good job! I do want to take a moment to thank my lecturer for telling me not to overstretch myself – my original plan was for each episode to be 15 minutes. They said no way. They were right.
I’m extremely proud of the webseries I’ve produced! You can check out the full project on The Local Patch Project website, or if YouTube is more your thing you can watch it here. Be sure to let me know what you thought – I hope you enjoy it!
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