NOVEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Western Isles, Scotland. Filming Highland Cows for National geographic.

A lovely day out filming Highland cows on north Uist with a great bunch of people. Carriane MacDonald and her mate and Angus MacDonald and his wife.

The plan was to film the cows going over to a tidal island for the winter. They’d walk a few kilometres down the road then head onto the sand and make the 3km crossing over the tidal sand at low tide. This all needed to be done at low tide. I’d got a friend of a friend Archie to drive for me so on the drive I could fly from the car and keep up. As the cows wouldn’t stop for us. Angus would lead the cows while Carriane and her mate would push from behind.

The day went very smoothly once I swapped the inspire 2 drone for the Mavic 3 Pro CINE so I could fly in the winds gusting 40 mph at times. I even had to rush off the island as the wind got worse and worse they cancelled all the ferries for the following days. Great to see these lovely looking cows doing the crossing though.

This will be shown on next years ‘Europe from the Air’ on Nat Geo channel or Disney Channel.

AUGUST 2022 - Drone Pilot on the Western Isles, Barra for National Geographic

A trip to Barra for the second time this year. This time for ‘Europe from above’ a National Geographic program you can get on the Disney channel. Can see last years series just now, where I filmed about 70% of the Scottish parts:)

Well this was a challenging shoot travelling all the way there with ferries needing booked well in advance and then first day of shooting the winds are 40mph and raining!! Fortunately we got a couple of moments where it cleared and winds dropped and managed to film two planes landing. A few permissions were needed for this lol.

What an awesome airport where the planes only land at low tide on the beach. Great bunch of crew working there to making for some fun filming. the weather was a bit better day two after a morning of rain. Had to squeeze my 2 day shoot into an afternoon. I was like a headless chicken trying to get it done and ticking off the script as i went.

APRIL 2022 - Drone pilot on Mingulay over on the Western Isles for BBC ALBA

Now this was an amazing trip with the Dana crew. Filming the 8th episode together and the 2nd episode of season two. Here we head to Mingulay the un-inhabited island on the far south of the Western Isles. We are going for 4 days camping and climbing on the massive sea cliffs. there is something very special about this island, not sure what it is just feels great being there with the wildlife and sea and cliffs:)

We amazing get great weather although quite windy. We almost get stuck there which we were all looking forward to but Angus in his boat managed to get in to the little rocky gully where we load up. Some pics below just to show how amazing the place looks.

The footage was stunning here with climbers high on the cliffs and an ever moving background of waves crashing against the cliffs. Akira Kurosawa would have loved the movement in the shots lol. These episodes are out in October:)