Cor, me poor old plates of meat

 

POTD 20Mar11, originally uploaded by andyskelton-a Blog a day http://andrewskelton.net.

After a ter-ri-fic (Mike Read anyone?) day out at Kew yesterday, I was chancing my arm with another day out and whilst I’m not as pleased with the photos from today I still managed to take one or two.

With a car full of camera gear consisting of a monopod, tripod, 5 lenses, flashgun, and camera  I headed over to Marwell zoo – the nearest one to where I live. The clear blue skies of yesterday had been replaced by a blanket of white cloud with no sign of the sun when I first arrived.

As I walked around the park, frustration built where animals were either asleep, in a poor position to photograph or where cages had glass viewing areas, reflections spoiling images or making them impossible to get(the sun having come out at this point). It was only around 2.30pm that I managed to capture some images I was pleased with, these being of a Serval, a type of big-medium-sized cat, which I’ll be posting later in the week (ooh aren’t I such a tease!).

Frustration was to rear it’s ugly head again later in the day trying to photograph amur leopards. I’ve posted some photos to flickr previously taken at Marwell of these leopards but today it just wasn’t happening… well, it’s more a case of not getting the shots I had in mind. The male leopard was pacing back and forth along some bars which many mistook for the creature being in distress, which I guess in some ways it was but not out of boredom. The female leopard was separate, in a much larger enclosure adjacent to his and I suspect was about to be in season. Her coquettish approaches upto the bars between then as well as rolling on the ground in front of him were clear sign, and the male leopard couldn’t take his eyes off her. Let’s hope there’ll be the patter of tiny paws this year (the gestation period of amur leopards is 90 to 100 days so it could be) now that’ll be a photo opportunity.

I must try and weigh the gear I walk round with, whilst it feels like there are a couple of elephants in the rucksack – it’s probably more like 10Kg – either way, my feet (plates of meat) are glad of the rest now I’m back home. Mind you, the weather looks promising for tomorrow so I’ll be taking my lens out for another trip hopefully. Just glad I’m not using film!

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