Friday May 3rd

 The high concentration of good photo subjects along the north coast of Co. Antrim allowed us to see a lot in a short time. No need to spend a lot of time on the road chasing something to photograph.  Plus the days are quite long in early May. Sunrise is about 5:30 and sunset about 9:15. We would be capitalizing on all this daylight.

While everyone was still sleeping I got up for the sunrise at Kinbane Castle, just a few miles up the coast. There is just a remnant of the castle and its outer walls but there is enough of the main tower to make interesting photos. I just caught the sunrise.

_8505476-HDR-Edit _8505495-HDR-Edit

The sun just peeped through a narrow window of clear sky and then slipped behind a good size cloud bank, taking all the color with it. But dark & moody can work too.

_8505459-Edit-2

I got in a good round of shooting before I had to get back to town. We were catching a ferry to Rathlin Island. The big attraction for me is the big seabird rookery, including puffins. Everybody likes to photograph puffins and I this was my chance. After the 40 minute ferry ride we got on a bus that took us to the western tip of the island. If you've never seen one of these big seabird rookeries at nesting time they are always impressive. Many thousands of birds were nesting in this rather small cove.

IMG_9803

_8505560 _8505562 _5003465

_5003454

But not a lot of puffins. We were too early. There were only a dozen or so pairs building (or burrowing) nests. And they were too far away and way below us. The pictures below are shot with a 500 mm lens and cropped about 50%. 

_5003534 _5003486

About an hour at the rookery is plenty so we rode the bus back to the harbor where there is actually a nice hotel and restaurant. Lunch was quite good. There are other things to do and photograph on the island but we were on foot. Tourists are discouraged from bringing their cars on the ferry. Bicycles or better yet e-bikes would be the way to explore this place. So we looked around the harbor while we waited for the ferry. The island has lots of seals and they seem indifferent to people, as long as their space is respected. No cell phone selfies with the seals please. 

_5003433

By the time we got back to Ballycastle on the ferry our pretty blue sky had clouded over and the rain came soon after. That was okay. We needed to rest up anyway.

As we got into evening though, the rain stopped and the clouds lifted a little so we thought this would be a good time to look at Giant's Causeway. This is a very unusual formation of hexagonal basalt columns that go right into the ocean. The basalt was ejected from a volcano. It is quite a popular spot but the rain had chased all the tourists away. I still had trouble finding a composition I liked though. The overcast was still hanging around so the light was very flat and the black basalt soaked up what little contrast we had. 

_8505596

_8505610-HDR-Edit

IMG_9852

_8505629-HDR I'll have to try again next time. But we got in three attractions and had time for a nap. Pretty good day.