Dunnottar Castle headland, Stonehaven

Dunnottar is the most theatrical castle setting in Scotland — a fortress covering an entire flat-topped promontory, moated by the North Sea on three sides. Aerially it is unbeatable: a slow orbit at cliff-top height shows the whole rock in one frame, something no ground photographer can approach. The rules need respect here. The castle is privately owned (Dunecht Estates) and drones are not permitted within the castle grounds or from the visitor path onto the rock, so TOAL happens on the open clifftop grassland along the coastal path between the car park and the headland — outside the paid grounds — under Scottish access rights. Keep your flight seaward of the visitor route, never overfly people queueing on the neck of land, and consider flying before opening time, which also gives you the best light: sunrise, when the sun comes up out of the sea directly behind the rock. Aberdeen Airport's FRZ is about 25km north, so airspace is clear, though coastal helicopter traffic to the offshore fields runs this shoreline — keep your scan going and stay at sensible heights. Fowlsheugh RSPB seabird colony lies a few kilometres south, and the Dunnottar cliffs themselves hold nesting fulmars and kittiwakes, so give cliff faces margin from April to July. Wind rotor off the cliff edges is fierce in an easterly. Busy from mid-morning in summer; deserted at dawn.