Tag Archives: mammal

Hatton Cross Horses Ignore The Planes

My visit to Hatton Cross was to shoot airplanes but, as I came out of the tube station and walked along the A30 to Myrtle Avenue, I passed some fields that had a bunch of horses grazing in them.  This seemed like such an incongruous thing to see.  I was in amongst the housing and right next to an international airport with a major road passing through.  Having so many horses there seemed like the last thing I would have expected.

Some of them looked like large working horses while others were either ponies or foals.  I am not a specialist so can’t tell the difference.  The approach lights for the runway were in the field surrounded by fencing which seemed to attract some of the ponies for some reason.  They looked pretty tranquil and clearly had no interest in the planes passing overhead.  How could they not be looking???

Goats

I shared some shots of lambs from Maltby Farm quite a while back.  The lambs weren’t the only creatures that got a lot of attention from the visitors.  There was an enclosure with a lot of goats.  Goats are curious creatures to look at.  They have a look that I guess is not very appealing since the goats head seems to have a lot of diabolical associations.  Not sure why but they can be a bit creepy.

Smaller goats have a cuter look like a lot of smaller versions of large animals do.  They do seem to like standing on precarious things.  There were some wooden structures for them to walk along and one of the goats came up behind another that wasn’t moving.  It was a small diversion to drop down to the ground and go around but, instead, it just stood behind the first goat waiting until it finally moved.  Maybe it is like a game you play as a kid (pun intended) where you won’t step on the cracks in the ground.

Donkeys

I was driving through the Skagit Valley quite a while back when I passed a farm that seemed to have a lot of donkeys on their property.  I only realized this as I passed at speed and I had somewhere else I was heading so I parked the thought for a while.  Later in the day, when I had finished whatever it was I was planning on doing, I remembered that I had seen them so retraced my steps to see if I could remember exactly where the farm had been.  That part of the valley has loads of farms so I wasn’t certain where it was exactly.

Fortunately, the road was quiet so I was able to slow down while passing each farm until I spotted the donkeys out in the field.  A quick turn and I was able to pull off the road.  Not only were they in the fields but they were also walking about in a yard right near the road.  My arrival probably got them to move a little further away but I still got a bunch of shots of them.  As a kid, a farm near where we lived for a short while had donkeys so I have always had a soft spot for them.  They just look like a friendly creature.

Cattle Traffic Jam in Beaulieu

For some reason, I don’t think this made it to a post previously.  Nancy and I were going through some old shots from vacations in the UK and we made a stop in Beaulieu at the beginning of a trip nearly a decade ago.  (This stop included me having a nap in the car as the jet lag caught up with me.). One of the funny things of this visit was that some cattle were wandering through the middle of the village.  If you have ever been to Yellowstone, you know that the bison have priority over the cars.  UK cattle might not have the same weight as a bison but I assure you that the average UK motorist is not going to try their luck.

Deer in Yorkshire a Couple of Decades Ago

More from the negative scan archive.  Another hike we were taking and this time the wildlife is a little larger.  This herd of deer was grazing nearby and there were some impressive sets of antlers on display for some of them.  One stag was staring in our direction briefly so I got a nice head on shot.  The scan of the negative with my 40D seems to have come out pretty well.

Seals Looking for a Salmon Dinner

A trip to the Chittenden Locks in Ballard in the fall is a good time to see salmon making their way up through the fish ladder en route to their spawning grounds.  If we know the salmon are there, so do their predators.  On this day, it was seals.  Seals and sea lions are both common at the locks when hunting for salmon.  A pair of seals were playing around in the waters near the locks, no doubt choosing their moment for a snack.  Another pair of seals had been a bit more aggressive in their thinking.  They had made their way into the fish ladder itself.

There are gates on the entrance to the ladder that are intended to allow the fish through and not the larger predators but I guess on this day, the gates had been left open.  Our first glimpse on one of the seals was as it was chomping its way through a salmon it had already caught.  It was making swift work of it.  A while later we saw them again.  They would haul themselves out on to the walls of the ladder for a break before diving back in to search for the next snack!

Bull Elk

Our ride through the refuge was covered in this post.  Scattered throughout the herd were a large number of bull elk.  At this time of year they are not competing for anything other than food so there was little tension between them.  Instead, they seemed focused on feeding.  However, they still had antlers so they made an imposing sight when they looked the right way.

Minke Whale Feeding

On our trip back to Edmonds, after we left the orcas, we had a lucky encounter.  We came across a minke whale.  It was having a good time feeding on bait balls that were easy to spot given the large number of birds on the surface above them.  We saw the whale surface a few times and then it headed for the bait.  Timing its surfacing was tricky.  The birds all started to take flight but they did so a long time before the whale came up through the fish.  I missed the key moment.  However, I did get a few shots of the whale as it was feeding although not of the swollen lower jaw folds as it took mouthfuls of water in.

Deer That Don’t Care

Fort Casey had a bunch of deer that were chomping their way around the grounds while I was there.  These deer seemed pretty fearless.  I guess there are tons of people coming through the Fort, most of whom will not be any trouble to the deer so they must get pretty used to people in close proximity and know that they are not in any threat.  Consequently, I found that my efforts at getting a photo were pretty straightforward.  If I tried to get too close, I figured that they would move off but I could be close enough without affecting them.

The one creature that did seem to spook one of the deer was a cat.  Sitting up against a wall was a ginger cat that was sunning itself.  It didn’t seem to be interested in doing anything at all but the deer was aware of it and seemed to be quite nervous.  A number of times it would jump, presumably because the cat had twitched in some way.  It seemed pretty clear that it was not moving for anyone though.  I guess the deer is going to have to get used to it.

The Red Pandas are Performers

Visiting the zoo is often a game of hide and seek with the animals.  They live according to their normal schedules and are not inclined to be active just because you happen to be there.  They also will find a favored location in their enclosure which is not putting them on display to the animals on the other side of the glass.  You may catch a glimpse of something sleeping in a shadowy space or you may wonder whether the animal is even in there.

When we got to the red panda enclosure, I was half expecting to not see very much.  I figured this would be another reclusive creature.  I was wrong.  I don’t know whether they are naturally energetic creatures, whether they are curious about their visitors or whether some unseen motivation is given to them to get out there but these guys were the exact opposite of what I had anticipated.  They had a number of trees within their space and they were very happy to zip around through the branches.  This often brought them right up front to where the visitors were standing.  They would happily motor about, stare at the people, head back, disappear for a while before reappearing and repeating the process.  Their public was suitably appreciative.