On the rocks

The exciting moment of pressing the shutter button couldn't happen without planning, a long drive and a very early morning start...

- Tom Mason

One thing I love about summer shoots is that sometimes I'll make it back for breakfast! Throughout the rest of the year, with dawn coinciding with the restrictive timings of UK hotel breakfasts, I'm out well before they start and back just after they've cleared up, all too often leaving me hungry, and relying on a boring old cereal bar and a coffee from those silly little kettles to keep me going.

But in the summer... Yes, I might have to be up at 3am, but at least I'll be back for my eggs Benedict and filter coffee... 

There is something rather special about those early mornings in the summer, when the world is void of almost all human activity. It's wonderful to have the place to yourself. When I'd driven up to the Peak District the previous day and scouted out my location in the late afternoon, the area had been packed with climbers, hikers and holiday-makers, luckily now nowhere to be seen. The ridgeline I'm standing on is completely desolate, as if you were somewhere truly remote rather than barely a stone's throw from some of the UK's most populated areas! The joy of being a wildlife photographer: beautiful isolation.

Enter the ouzel