Red Panda

These are absolutely, definitely one of my favourite mammals.

I think they are great to photograph because they have so much personality.

This one was in the Tiergarten, the Zoo in Vienna 

You have to admit they're so cute.

Amphibious Antelope

Meet the Sitatunga...

This is a marsh dwelling antelope native to Central Africa and is also known as a Marshbuck.

It has an unusual way of walking and at first as I observed the small herd in the paddock at Chester Zoo I was concerned at how swampy the ground seemed to be but as I watched a little longer I could see how these animals are perfectly adapted to these conditions. One of their adaptations is long splayed hooves.

The males have beautiful long, curved horns but the females do not.

They are not a threatened species but their main predators are humans, pythons, crocodiles, leopards and lions.

War Wounds

Today I wasn't going to post any more pictures from the Rut although I was going to choose some other mammals after listening to the awesome song "Mammal" by They Might Be Giants (Click here to listen). Anyway as I was browsing I decided to post the first two because they show two different stags with  very clear evidence of the violence of the rut. 

In the first  image the stag is what is known as a Menil variety with a much paler coat than the more common tan/fawn colouring and without the black rump. He has clearly been in a fight and has lost part of his impressive set of antlers.

In the second image you can see two lines of scarring on its right flank also evidence of being in a fight.

The young stags can spend a lot of time sparring without any real vicious intent but when the rutting season begins in earnest the sparring becomes much more serious and potentially deadly. Perhaps these two can count themselves lucky, despite their wounds.

In contrast to that the final shot in today's selection is a much more tranquil, bucolic scene.

So that is all for now, I am not sure what I will post next but please come back tomorrow to see what I choose.

A Mix of Emotions

Today I have taken a break from the shoot in the Lake District from last Saturday (I will return to those another day), and I am showing some pictures from my visit to Chester Zoo with my daughter, taking advantage of the reasonably good weather.

The first two shots are of Mandrill. The pictures are not as good quality as I would have liked because they were behind glass and it was difficult to get a clear shot without light reflecting off the glass.  All the same I really like these images because of the expressions on the face of the large male. In the first shot he looks terribly sad, and in the second when one of the females started grooming him he still has a far away look.

The third picture is of two female Sitatunga which are swamp dwelling antelope from Central Africa. I thought it was quite a touching image as they moved in to make this contact, in what was quite a deliberate gesture. 

Over the next few days come back to see some of my favourite shots from today's trip to the zoo.