Photos from February

The end of February brought us some snow, and although we didn't get as much as surrounding areas, we still did get a little covering here at the Centre. Around getting jobs done so that keepers could get home early, and avoiding my fingers dropping off in the bitterly cold wind, I managed to get a few pictures of our animals in the dusting of snow. The one above of Susie in her ermine coat being my favourite.

A few more snow photos are at the end of the post, but I wanted to share a couple of others first. This one above is of one of our male otters, Jake. I took this during the early part of the month, having been taking photos of the cubs and buster... and remembering that I don't actually have too many pictures of him.

It was very late one evening, and little light... you can see hardly any colour in the image at all, but still he looks as handsome as ever. It is probably my favourite portrait of him I have at the moment. 

At the beginning of the month I wanted to try and get a photo of Susie in her ermine coat. Something else I have wanted for a while is a photo of her whole body, including her tail... most of my pictures of her are just head and shoulders out of a hole.

I was happy with these two for record shots, but still not what I really had in mind.

When the snow came, it helped with the poor light by reflecting it around the enclosure making things a bit easier. I quite liked the one above, and so now just need to take one in her summer coat complete with tail.

In the past, when we have had snow, the snowy owl has always been my first port of call. But this year I had to make it Susie... an ermine stoat in the snow!

Tuesday afternoon, the keepers went home early to avoid the traffic and icy roads, and I went and spent half an hour with Susie before heading off myself.

We had a little bit of light for a few minutes, but even with out it wasn't too bad as the snow made everything brighter.

Feeling left out, Nina the weasel wanted her photograph taken too!

Now these pictures of the otters were actually taken on the 1st of March, but thought I would include them here since they are a bit snowy.

I have several photos of our two otter cubs running on the snowy ice, but these are a couple of my favourites.

It took them a while to get used to the ice, unlike Buster above, who has seen it all before. Here he is just standing in the middle of the pond on the ice, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Thanks for looking :-)