Magic!
Anyway, today was the final chapter in the 11th birthday celebrations saga, and we took Jake and Owen to Wingham Wildlife Park to be keepers for the day. We went there back in April, and even though we're now into mid June, the weather then was much better then than it was today.
Still, we didn't do too badly given all the rain that's been around, and as I type this, it is making a racket on the conservatory roof. It stayed dry for almost all of our time at the park, and we only had one or two little showers.
Jake and Owen both enjoyed their morning, which was spent feeding the animals. However, the afternoon wasn't considered to be quite as much fun, as some mucking out was involved!
Still, overall a good time was had by all!
Wingham is great for taking photos, as they have some thoroughly cute animals (meerkats, prairie dogs, lemurs, penguins), all of which can be photographed without any fences in between the camera and the animal.
There are a few of the animals who can't be photographed as easily. Most notably the tiger cubs, who are unbelievably photogenic, but their enclosure is surrounded by a wire fence, and then another wooden barrier is placed about three feet away from the fence. This means that it is not possible to get right up to the fence and put the camera next to one of the gaps to eliminate it from the shot. So, on autofocus, the camera wants to take a pretty picture of chain link, with a blurry furry thing behind it! The next best bet is to put the manual focus setting on the camera. But the problem with this is that it then involves trying to estimate the distance to your subject (which keeps moving). This is why I have lots of pictures of fence and lots of orange and black fuzz - all in the hope of getting one or two decent ones.
The uploading of today's set may well take quite a while to get through completely, so here are a few to be going on with.
