BWC Photo Competition WINNER

Many congratulations to Mark Coventry for winning the BWC Spring Photo Competition with his image of a Red Squirrel shown above.

After looking through the over 100 entries, the keepers whittled them down to a short list of about 15 which they particularly liked for various reasons. Then on Wednesday evening, wildlife photographer Andy Rouse came to the centre to photograph our fox cubs. While here I asked if he would mind judging the competition from the short list and he was delighted to help.

Out of the photos there were a few that caught his eye, and the Wildcat in the post below was a close second, but in the end Andy plumped for Mark's photograph of the Red Squirrel above.

Andy Rouse felt that the image showed the cute factor of the red squirrel, was nicely composed and in-focus and remarked how tricky it was to get a good sharp photo of such a quick moving animal. He particularly liked this image as he has still yet to see and get a good photo of one of our red squirrels out in their new walk-through red squirrel enclosure.

Many thanks to Andy for his help with this competition, and congratulations again to Mark Coventry for his superb portrait shot. Have a closer look at his image next time you are at the centre on our news board, or follow the link below to see some of his other photos on his website.

www.markcoventryphotography.co.uk

BWC Spring photo competition

It has been a couple of weeks since our first BWC Photo Competition has finished, and I can now tell you all that a winner has been selected.

It was a fantastic success, only due to your great response and photo entries, and the keepers ended up having to look through over 100 different images to select a final short list of around 10.

We did have to disqualify some photos which were taken before 2009/2010, and even a couple that were taken of animals not at the BWC (Yes! we do know our animals that well to tell them apart) Bit overall the standard was very high.

I must confess however, I did notice a few of you regular photographers to the Centre did not enter? Be sure to next time as the more interest we can gain for this the better we can make it.

Anyway, with that said, below are few photos that we particularly liked for various reasons, and then the final four photos from which the winner was chosen.

We had many photographs showing of the interaction between our animals, which I for one loved, there was a great photo of our foxes by "Janet Howard" that can still be seen in our flickr group, but the one we liked best was this photo above by "artography64" entitled "The Lovers"

Behaviour shots were another that cropped up a lot, and most of you know I am a stippler for my animal behaviour. We particularly liked this one by "Alan Jones" of our Fallow Deer with one apparently scaring the other one off by sticking its tongue out at her.

Unsurprisingly portrait shots came up the most, and it was nice to see so many of you not forget our smaller animals with lots of entries of Polecats, Harvest mice and snakes. However this above photo of Robin our Little Owl, taken by "Barney Couch" particularly grabbed our attention.

Some of you even took photos of our "wild" wildlife here, and there was a great photo of our resident robin sitting on our feeding trolley with a rake and watering can entitled "Robin the gardener" Taken by Julie Iles.

The choice was very tough, but we ended up narrowing it down to around ten potential winners from which 4 particularly stood out. They can be seen below.

Badger cub in daisies, taken by "7D man!" via flickr

Red squirrel, taken by "Mark Coventry" via email

Heron, taken by "Zwierzanski" via flickr

Wildcat, taken by Maria Marsden via email


I will post the winner in a separate blog post later today, as selected by world renowned wildlife photographer Andy Rouse, and his reasons for his selection.

Deer calves/fawns

We now have two Red Deer calves that I have seen out in the deer paddock, and it seems that they belong to our two friendliest hinds, Penny and Poppy.

Eric won the rut again last Autumn, and all the older hinds should give birth over the coming weeks. At a glance I would expect us to have near to just over double figures of youngsters running around by the Summer.

The calves are on their feet within 15 minutes of being born, and although a little wobbly, can manage to follow mum around if needs be. I remember one year I was doing a Deer talk and one gave birth right at the beginning of it, and by the end the youngster was on its feet at the back of the paddock.

Above is Penny with her calf. It will not take long for the youngsters to come to the keeper talks, they will follow the herds lead, and seeing that they are not bothered by us being there, they won't be either.

One of the youngsters having a clean from mum. You can just see the dappling or lighter spots along the side of the calfs body. This would be to help it hide away in the long grass out in the wild. If you are still unsure how well this would work, look at the photo below.

Yes... there is a deer in this picture : ) It is Willow's Roe Fawn. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see where I have zoomed in on the ears just poking out from the thistles.

Ideal camouflage. The mothers will often leave their baby in the grass while they go off to feed themselves, this is why it is important to NOT disturb what you may think is an abandoned fawn. Most likely it is not and the mother is just waiting for you to leave so she can return to it safely.

Willow seems to be feeding her fawn quite regularly in the early afternoon on these past few days, keep an eye open for her next time you are here.