Animals on TV

Have you seen the John Lewis Christmas advert for this year yet? Not giving too much away, but it features some British wildlife.

So why am I mentioning it?.. Well, a few weeks a go "Sky" visited us to film part of a TV short to accompany this advert. They wanted to produce a piece showing the public what they could do in their gardens at home to help our wildlife.

Presenter Patrick Aryee, pictured above with one of our red squirrels, was filmed with a few of our animals and they used some stock footage that they filmed here on previous visits. Along with what they filmed with a South London community taking part in the Hedgehog Street campaign, they put together a piece called "Garden Friends" which aired shortly after the premiere of the John Lewis Christmas advert.

To see the advert, follow this link to the Wildlife Trusts page who were this years John Lewis charity campaign partners. Here you can also see and learn about many ways in which we can help our wildlife in our gardens at home.

Wildlife Trusts - John Lewis Advert

Below is the short "Garden Friends", that stars many of our animals, including Hugo the Hedgehog and Florence the owl.

October 2016: Photo of the Month

"Otter Standing" by Karen Gray

Temperatures are getting colder, days are getting shorter, but it doesn't seem to be stopping you photographers out there. We have seen a surprising amount of grass snake photos this past month... Surprsing that he is still up to be seen, despite the colder weather, and surprising due to how shy he used to be. Good old Gerald though, putting on a good show.

It wasn't a grass snake photo we chose though, we went for the photograph above taken by Karen Gray of Elwood standing near the edge of the pond.

A standing otter photo is difficult to take for many reasons, and this is one by Karen is one of the best I have seen. Elwood is posing majestically and looking beautifully in to the frame. The composition is spot on, and you have the added bonus of a great background. Clean, non distracting, and showing their semi aquatic habitat perfectly. Great photo Karen.

"Otter" by Gary Chisholm

Unlike a lot of our animals, our otters seem to prefer the cooler weather. Lots of lovely otter portrait were seen this month, like this one above taken by Gary Chisholm.

"Red Deer Rut" by Stan Maddams

And of course an October photo of the month post wouldn't be complete with at least one deer picture. Our stags didn't really rut this year, but the occasionally 'practice' tussle was had such as this one caught by Stan Maddams. Hopefully this is good signs for next year!

Well done again to Karen, her photograph will be in the gallery next year in our Coffee shop and is in the running to win a photographic day here at the Centre next year.