JC's Traveblog

On Tuesday Carol cleared off with her sister to rummage around looking for some dusty documents at The National Archive so yours truly was left to amuse himself. It turned out to be a better day than advertized; no thundery showers ever appeared and, although quite windy, the sun shone more than not. So, out came the Mazda, down went his roof and into his boot went my camera, Even though we’re approaching Easter and rugrats could have been a problem, it seemed like a perfectly pleasant day for a bracing walk around Whipsnade to see if anyone would pose for some portraits.

First port of call was the oriental short-clawed otters. I’ve now noticed that they are actually labelled “small-clawed otters” but my old/bad habits die hard. whoever they are, they are usually good value. This day was no exception and, true to form, every time they heard an internal combustion engine they stood up on their hind legs expecting food to be delivered. Having failed last time, this time I managed to capture one doing an excellent Tommy Cooper impression, though “squeak” didn’t have quite the effect of “just like that”.

There was a kind of show and tell (clearly I’ve been watching too much American television) taking place at the elephant arena, actually billed as “ask the keeper”, I think. The Asian elephants seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that much of the conversation revolved around elephant urine. Curious! Serves me right for joining a conversation half way through, I suppose.

Staying with the macro inmates, the greater one-horned rhino keeper was having a wonderful time spring-cleaning junior’s bedroom and junior had been locked out. These guys are the armour-plated heavyweights of the rhino world. Let’s face it, all rhinos are damned heavy but these are huge. Anyway, junior didn’t seem to like being locked out and kept wandering up and down the substantial iron bars, occasionally pawing them trying to get back in.  Once, however, he or she (I’m utterly hopeless at sexing greater one-horned rhinos – and far too scared to attempt it) condescended to wander away from the bars so I could get a half-decent portrait. I simply cannot stand shots with bars and fences. Picky, picky!

Very unusually, the Pere David’s deer were being cooperative and showing themselves to their adoring pedestrian public. Quite often, they are really only easily seen from a car on the so-called “drive through Asia” route. The males  (are they bucks or stags?) have significant wonderful velvety antlers that really must help develop their neck muscles. I imagine that the male with the finest set of antlers gets to give many more muscles some good exercise, too.

Finally, I couldn’t resist another portrait of one of the many Patagonian maras that roam free around the Whipsnade grounds. I remain amazed that none seem to have escaped into the Bedfordshire countryside.

If only I had not parked poor Mazzie under a tree, I wouldn’t have had to wash him when I returned home. Lesson for the future.

We’ve been enjoying an uncharacteristically sunny interlude for about the last week and, even though it was a weekend and was likely to be swarming with rugrats, our friends at Whipsnade Zoo beckoned. This was in part encouraged by the fact that our friends Steve and Rosemary were going to be there for a birthday trip (Rosemary’s) and would be able to make use of our remaining awarded-to-members, soon-to-expire half price vouchers. The theme of the day seemed to be water.

Our first interesting stop of the day turned out to be the brown bears. One obligingly wandered into their pool and began rummaging around pulling up and investigating pawfuls of stuff from the bottom. Perseverance paid off and it eventually dredged up a prize carrot. Yummy! Eventually, after a few further dredges failed to produce more goodies, it tried to leave the pool but another bear took exception and the claws, fur and water began to fly. Could this have been the proverbial bear with a sore head?

Water was on the agenda again at the penguin pool. One pair on the bank was exhibiting either nesting behaviour or courtship behaviour; I suspect courtship since I’m not sure that penguins actually build nests. I can’t sex penguins (fortunately) but I’m guessing it was a male holding some material in its beak in an attempt to impress a female. Meanwhile, in the pool, the Olympic Antarctic Synchronized Swimming Duo was putting in some serious practice time, presumably in preparation for glory at London, 2012. Thankfully, I had my polarizing filter with me.

The generally reliable short-clawed otters were being their usual playful selves in the sunshine scampering and squeaking around their enclosure with occasional excursions into the water. The Caribbean Flamingoes spend most of their time in the water, of course, but were obligingly close to the fence for some close-up shots.

Finally on dry land, a second trip through the lemur enclosure proved worthwhile. On our first attempt they had been huddling in inactivity. They were now more active wandering along the fence close to a noticeably reduced public and occasionally posing for portraits instead of hiding their endearing faces.

The star picture of the day, however, didn’t come from one of Whipsnade’s inmates. As we were wandering around near the lions and cheetahs traditionally doing nothing but snoozing in the grass, a red kite drifted over us. Helped by a little luck, so often needed (in this case, the camera already being set on a little over-exposure) Carol managed to grab a very clear shot of it as it passed over head. Its wings looked odd when we examined the result later. It turned out to have two tags, one red and one black, which you can just see on the leading edge of each wing.

[First of all, a couple of apologies. Apology #1 goes to any English readers for the Americanization of "mom" in the title caused by my needing a little URL poetic license. Apology #2 goes to non-British TV viewers who will not have seen our latest, very popular, series of comparethemeerket.com adverts/commercials featuring Aleksandr. Incidentally, for those folks who haven't yet discovered the links (are there any?), Aleksandr has a huge fan base both on Facebook and on Twitter. A superstar is born. Now, on with business ...]

Surprise of surprises, Monday was sunny. Admittedly the wind was still chill but it seemed quite a while since we’d experienced anything approaching this appealing a day. Carol dropped the roof on our Mazda and was intent on whizzing off for a spot of sport-shopping with her mother and sister. I preferred to drop in on our animal friends at Whipsnade Zoo to see what they were up to in the late winter. We’d been threatening to take my mother along for a break and, not having had much decent weather of late, this seemed an ideal time. Either bravely or foolhardily, I phoned ahead and requested a wheelchair for mater. This is a great free service at Whipsnade requiring just a £25 returnable deposit to discourage absconding with said wheelchair. Clearly, this was going to be a Mothering Monday.

It’s very difficult to tell in advance which, if any, of the Whipsnade Zoo inmates are going to be entertaining on any particular day. It seems to vary depending on various factors: mood, weather, feeding time. Usually, though, someone steps up to the mark. On Monday afternoon, Whipsnade’s five or six-strong group of short-clawed otters were particularly playful, frantically rushing and swimming around their enclosure entertaining onlookers. One appeared to be attempting to play catch with a small stone.

There is one set of inmates that have yet to let me down on the entertainment front and, as I wheeled my mum up to Whipsnade’s relatively new meerkat population, their consistency continued. It’s the meerkats’ habit of posting guard on handy high points that makes them most endearing. In the case of Whipsnade, the high point is a splendid fake termite mound which fits the lookout’s needs perfectly. There did seem to be a little unrest amongst the population, though, and one poor meerkat seemed to be suffering with a sore-looking patch on its neck. Poor Aleksandr!

We lucked out by arriving at the reindeer while they were munching their way through some very unappetizing branches; unappetizing to us, anyway, though clearly the reindeer seemed to think they were edible. Finally, having completed my wheelchair push-athon around Whipsnade and having redeemed my deposit for the return of said wheelchair, we drove around the Asian paddock where the various deer herds were being unusually cooperative. One fawn was looking decidedly cute.

It’s a long walk around Whipsnade and, together with a camera rucksack, pushing a wheelchair all the way around proved to be good exercise. Given the state of some of the tracks, I think I need to set about designing a 4×4 wheelchair.

Most unusually, we returned from California to a rare spell of sunny days in the UK. What a welcome change that was for a return. Anxious to increase the doses of sunlight received by our pineal glands in an effort to recover from the accursed jet lag, we broke retirement rule #1 (Don’t play tourist at weekends) on Saturday and popped off to Whipsnade Zoo for a wander around the inmates.

We were delighted to discover that Whipsnade had recently installed some very photogenic meerkats to add to their usual suspects. They are great value and very entertaining and, for once, the observation point has been placed sensibly in relation to the direction of the sun. Whoever designed the so-called “Lions of the Serengeti” enclosure should be thrown to its inhabitants, damn it, but I digress …

So, following hot on the heels our 2008 California pictures, a few cute meerkat pictures, together with a couple of some other inmates, can now be found in our Stop Press photo album.

‘T was a good day with some sun and the occasional cloud so we decided to go and use our Whipsnade Zoo season tickets and see if the animals would cooperate for the new camera. Whipsnade also has a brand new cheetah enclosure which we were keen to see.

Muggins forgot to take his reading glasses (signs of age – both forgetting and needing them) so couldn’t review very well the shots as they were being taken but basic picture taking isn’t so very different from the film variety. I set the camera to record large JPEGs which gives a 450 shot capacity (that should suffice even if I keep the button pressed). Carol is currently using RAW format but she knows her camera and the associated Canon software better than I. Maybe I’ll try it later. The trouble is, my Adobe Photoshop Elements is too old (version 2) to display the Canon CR2 RAW format; it’s also too old for the plugin to that displays it to be applied. Drat! IrfanView is an excellent piece of freeware that does understand CR2, though. Phew! I recommend it. It also has some very good batch reformat/renaming facilities that get over the digital camera habit of naming all shots “IMG_####”.

Since the sun was out, so were the ring-tailed lemurs. These guys (and they are all guys – it’s a bachelor group) are far from camera shy and can be very good value given the right conditions. We spent some time with them until a group of school children turned up. There were several school trips though they were (mostly) under control. It’s usually very quiet during the week; sometimes a little too quiet.

Something new of interest often happens at Whipsnade, beyond the normal lemur suspects, that is. Though the majority of inmates frequently refuse to cooperate and feign camera-shyness, with a little patience and luck someone plays along eventually. This time, the penguins were being particularly active in their newly rejuvenated pools.

I was also very pleased with the results from the ostrich enclosure where Whipsnade has a male together with three ladies. One of the ladies seemed to be particularly curious about the long object I was pointing at her. Well, it is breeding season, I suppose.

The colours from the JPEG setting appear to be fine and so does the detail. I’m wondering if it’ll be worth bothering with RAW.

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