Sometimes I get asked if the non-summer months, or at least October to March, are good for photography in Ireland.

And of course the answer is yes. The autumn, winter and spring months hold some fantastic clear light days, moody overcast conditions, fog, burst of colour and often storms.

These months also typically have fewer tourists around and so make a perfect time for landscape photography.

A case in point; travelling through Northern Ireland's Mourne Mountains in March I found this scene of large fields bounded by huge-granite-stone walls so typical of County Down, an old cottage the only sign of habitation here.

And in that field, an arrangement of sheep.

39 legs in all, if you count my two of course, and one for the monopod supporting my camera.

Strong sunlight is evident here with those short well-defined shadows and bright folds of wool.

Northern Ireland will reopen soon and Panoramic Ireland's tours and workshops will be available to book as soon as possible but in the meantime I am still taking no-deposit, fully cancellable and changeable bookings - just send me an email to enquire about locations and dates.

Sheep find shelter on a lonely, almost treeless landscape in the Irish mountains.

At the end of a photography workshop, after photographing a small river and waterfalls we found this Irish scene of lush green trees, empty landscape and sheep sheltering behind tufts of vegetation.

And of course it made a scene worth photographing, different to those landscapes that we had spent the morning capturing, but as interesting as any scene.

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Scots pine or Pinus sylvestris is a native tree to Ireland, it grows tall and graceful with a reddish colour to its wood.

Here, in this abandoned farm high in the Irish mountains this Scots pine, planted a century ago, has fallen over and for many years has grown upwards from its reclining position supported by the old field boundary.

Sheep graze among the trees in the background underneath the rounded mountain summit above.

By now you'll probably be quite aware that I have written about sheep before, here is another sheep-filled scene from the sunny Irish countryside in spring.

It seems that during the whole lockdown due to coronavirus / COVID-19 that everything has stopped but life does go own, nature has its own rhythms and the seasons change just like they do every year - although in recent weeks we have seen a very warm spring.

That warm spring means long, sunny, warm days; maybe not conducive to working on images indoors but photographing and capturing wildlife is.

Here is a video of a Hummingbird Hawk Moth in Ireland in March 2020.

This ancient, tree-lined, grass-covered lane hasn't seen much traffic except for hooves of sheep for many decades.

Here it is filled with sheep and lambs in spring, nibbling the hawthorn hedge and grass - flowers escaping their graze.

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Life in some ways during the current lockdown due to Coronavirus / COVID-19 is continuing as normal, at least in the countryside.

Here sheep roam the fields, one field actually, this triangle-shaped field on the edge of the mountains.

A large tree stands guard over the small patch of land, and along with most of the low-level trees here, remains leafless - for now.

Higher, above, conifers line the top of the flat topped mountain.

In the hedges yellow-orange of the gorse bloom can be seen, a plant that flowers all year round in places.

Low visibility is a common problem in Ireland, landscape photography usually requires long, clear uninterrupted views so on this occasion we headed away from the big views and looked instead for scenes that suited the weather.

Here, we stopped on one of Panoramic Ireland's photography workshops in the Irish countryside to photograph sheep under a grey sky but a colourful landscape.

Lush green of late spring in Ireland both in the fields and the hedges, broken by bright orange-yellow flowers of gorse and white flowers of hawthorn.

Snow rarely lasts for more than a few days when it falls in Ireland. Save for in the high ground, above 600m where it might persist for the winter months on northern slopes.

So on waking today when I saw snow in the mountains it was a sensible decision to venture in search of the white stuff.

There have been a lot of rainy, windy and stormy days this winter. We have now passed Storm Imogen making the next official storm number ten of the season.

Today though was a beautiful day, I awoke to frost and clear reflections on the lake. The sky was blue as fasr as could be seen so I took a drive around the west of Ireland, clearly not all of it as that would be impossible in a day. It really would!

For many people Ireland is synonymous with sheep and lamb.

Travelling through the Garden County it is easy to see why, with sheep and lambs in spring on verdant fields or by roadsides grazing on heather.

Wicklow sheep were common throughout Ireland before the Famine and produced wool very suitable for flannel (as well as mutton for stews).