Say aaaaahhhhh

POTD 15Jan11, originally uploaded by andyskelton-a Blog a day http://andrewskelton.net.

A quick perusal of my flickr photos may make anyone think I’m somehow boring the animals to sleep, as a large number of them are yawning in the shots. Whilst it may be true that the creatures are indeed tired of my continuous clicking, the real reason is that most of the animals are more active at night and are just waking up.

Rather than our diurnal activities, a large percentage of wildlife are either crepuscular or nocturnal as it at these times when they are less likely to be preyed upon. This does, of course pose one major problem for wildlife photographers trying to photograph creatures in their natural habitats. The early light is often the best time to photograph crepuscular creatures ; the animals tend to be feeding at this time, and the sun low in the sky produces a soft strong light source.  Having sold a few items on ebay, I’m trying to decide whether I need a hide set up to photograph wildlife at these unearthly hours of the day.

Leopards tend to be more active during the night time hours, though not exclusively as can be seen in this photo of a mother Amur Leopard and her cub. It was my good fortune that the cub wasn’t aware of it’s sleep pattern, and having spent 30 minutes watching and photographing the youngster I came away with a number of memorable photos, though I don’t think the cub would think as much.

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