Photographic competiton

Hello to you all on this extremely cold morning, brrr!

We are thinking of starting up a regular photographic competition to run inline with our 3 yearly newsletters. Nothing to fancy, just for fun... anyone can enter. And the winning photo will not necessarily be the best but will be the favourite of the keepers that work here.

To start off with it will just be any photo taken here at the Centre. But if it gains popularity and becomes a staple in our newsletter then maybe we will look to expand it to have themes for each new start. Interaction, Species specific, Behaviour, Water etc etc... Stiill all taken here of course!

So let me know what you think...

Obviously something like this will only work with input and support from our visitors so feel free to make suggestions on this and/or and ideas on how we could do it!

Comment below, email me or leave a message on our Flickr or Facebook group.

Thank you.

Hedgerow

We are currently going through the Hedgerow section re-sorting all of the small mammal displays ready for our February half term opening.

Wood mouse, Apodemus slyvaticus

The biggest change will be to the corner pond area at the exit of the Hedgerow. You may have noticed at the end of last year we had already added a couple of Rudd and Tench to the pond. Now we are removing some of the Rush surrounding the pond and making the area 'escape proof' for Water Shrews. Water Shrews are good climbers but not very adept at jumping, so a smooth surface is being placed along the back walls of this enclosure. Then, very similar to the way we feed our Waters Voles, we will put a little island in the pond to try and tempt these elusive creatures out to feed.

Unlike most Shrews, you can keep Water Shrews in groups. We have a pair which will be released into their new home at the end of the week. Then following this we will add later in the year a few more frogs, toads and newts.

Unfortunatley I do not have a picture of a Water Shrew... yet!... but they are the largest of the shrew family in the UK, they have black fur on top and white fur underneath, and what look like little white eyebrows! They really are quite fascinating creatures to look at and watch.

Andy Rouse at the BWC

This week we welcomed world renowned wildlife photographer Andy Rouse back to the BWC.

Andy visited us a couple of weeks ago in the snow to spend some time with our foxes and otters before visiting again these last couple of days with National Geographic and Nikon.




They spent all of Thursday and the morning of Friday filming for an advert to go out on the National Geographic channel advertising the new Nikon D3s camera. They were blessed with good weather on the Thursday and of course Andy was not the only star with both our foxes and otters being on top form in front of the cameras.



Andy hopes to bring some of his photography seminars to the Centre later in the year, so keep your eyes open for forth coming news on both these and other events at the BWC.

For those of you not familiar with Andys work, check out his website at http://www.andyrouse.co.uk/ to see just some of his jaw-dropping photographs. You can also follow Andy on his lively blog, facebook (www.facebook.com/andyrousephoto) and twitter(http://twitter.com/Wildmanrouse) page.