A sunny day and we set off for the Yorkshire Wildlife Park, with Susan's parents, via Gainsborough to pick my mum up, and arrived around 11am.
http://www.yorkshirewildlifepark.com/#!opening-times--pricing/c1hrm
The car park was quite busy with coaches, and after paying the admission (£16 adult), we went into the park.
The park covers a large area, with very spacious enclosures for all the big cats (lions/ tigers etc..) and there is a fair bit of walking to do to get around it all.
Near the entrance are some of the smaller animals such as meerkats, as well as the cafes /restaurant. The main restaurant is actually outside the entrance and a stamp is required to exit and re-enter.
We soon headed towards the large lion enclosure (Lion Country). What is good here is that there are quite a few points inside the enclosure that are higher than the fence line. This allows unobstructed views of the big cats for photography, and I made quite a few shots whilst several lionesses prowled around on top of this "hill".
I do not own a very long (and expensive) zoom, but have a Canon 70-300mm L IS (Image Stabilised) lens for my 6D. Using this with a Kenko 1.4x converter for a bit more reach worked reasonably and with a little cropping, the image quality was not too bad (hand held)
Further around the enclosure, a lion chewing on a rather large bone.
After walking around the full enclosure a shot of flamingos, and then we headed off for lunch at the restaurant near the entrance. Think we caught it just before it got busier. The burger was excellent!
Back in thr park again, and we headed for the larger enclosures, passing camels on the way to more big cats......
Next was Leopard Heights, with a large leopard perched atop a tall "lookout" post. You can get a better view by going up the stairs to the viewing tower and looking across at the same height.
The tigers (Land of the Tiger), were a bit trickier to photograph as most could only be done through the wire fence. The young cubs we saw with their mother, but it was too dark and restricted to photograph in the secluded position they were laying in.
I did manage a half decent shot through the wire fence of one tiger though, with a wide aperture to dissapear the wire fence.
Moving around from the tiger enclosure we crossed the Wetlands over a large bridge to the very large polar bear enclosure and pool. Unfortunately they were at the other side of the pool and quite some distance away. Managed a few shots, not so great.
After passing through a woodland trail , the painted dogs were quite interesting and we caught the end of one of the talks, so listened in for a while. They do not "bark" like you would expect, more a high pitched ?!?!?!....... well make your own mind up if you visit!
Very close to here the baboons were entertaining....
That took us back to the entrance, and after an ice cream in the afternoon sun that nicely rounded the day off, we went back to the car and then home.
An excellent enjoyable day, and well worth a visit (or two!), no doubt we will be back as there were a few things we did not see. It was also VERY busy with parties of school children, perhaps on a final school trip before breaking up for the summer holidays.
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