A PHOTOGRAPHER trying to capture seasonal changes on Windermere claims to have got more than she bargained for when she caught a snap of a mystery creature.

Ellie Williams claims to have unwittingly captured Windermere’s famous ‘Bownessie’ on film after setting up an automatic camera on the shore of the lake.

The 24-year-old said she had set up the camera to take photographs at minute intervals throughout the day as part of a video project to document the ‘colour changes’ of autumn.

MORE TOP STORIES: However, when she went back to download the pictures she said she was ‘shocked’ by what she saw.

Elle, who works for Autographer in London, said: “My job is to go round and take lots of wonderful pictures.

“My brief at Windermere was to try to create a video through time lapsed photographs showing the seasonal changes over a day. I put the camera in place at around 7am and collected it again around 3pm.

“When I downloaded the pictures to my phone I thought great I have caught some wildlife – I thought it was a swan.

“However, when I download the image on to my laptop I could tell it definitely wasn’t a swan – it was far too big.

“I was shocked but also very excited by the find.”

To try to discover if the pictures were a hoax, staff checked to see if they had captured anyone on the shore of the lake putting something into the water.

However, Autographer said they found no evidence of such a prank and the pictures “had not been doctored at all”.

Ellie added: “I checked the pictures taken on either side of this and it was definitely not the result of a prank because I would have captured those responsible on film.

“It certainly is very interesting.”

The mystery creature – likened to the Loch Ness monster – was first spotted by tourist Steve Burnip in 2006. He described a serpent like creature, around 15-feet in length, at the north end of the lake.

Despite attempts to find evidence the mystery creature exists, including an investigation in 2009 and a team of self-titled monster hunters taking to the water in 2010 – no actual evidence exists.

Reported sightings have included strange rippling on the water surface and humps sticking out of the water.

A spokesman for the Autographer said: “We have no idea whether it’s real or not. We set these up all over the world and have never seen anything like it. It may have been a prank by someone who saw our camera set up, though it looks pretty convincing.”