Posts Tagged ‘wildlife’

While in Reykjavik we went whale watching. There are a number of companies doing the tours: Elding and Special Tours do big-boats while another company offers inflatable rib boats. The latter allows you to get closer, but you don’t get the luxury of a nice big boat you can go inside, and it is twice the price.

We went dolphin watching while in the Highlands and that was amazing as the dolphins come and swim alongside the boat, jumping out of the water.

Whales are not like that. They come up to take a few breaths and then go for a dive. You see a fin maybe as they sit below the surface and then the tail as they dive down, but that is about it. Generally, this is from quite a distance. You see a whale of course, which is cool, but you don’t physically see much.

The photos are taken with my 200mm lens and were clearer than you could see with the eye.

When you get on the boat, they offer you a seat of warm overalls to put on. I would recommend taking them up on this. Elina and I came prepared: Finnish woolly socks, fleeces and my new extra-warm coat and it was still a bit chilly.

Overall, I think I was disappointed with the whale watching. I think it was around £50 each, so that’s £100 for the two of us, and you just don’t see much. You could get closer by taking the rib boat, but then that is around £200 for a couple.

Earlier this month myself and Elina went to Flamingo Land. I was quite impressed. We did not go on any of the rides; we just did the zoo. Even with that, it was still a full day of stuff to do, indeed we probably could have spent more time there if we wanted to see all the shows.

Photos from our trip to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Centre on Jersey.

While on Jersey last month, we went to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Centre. I took a few videos while I was there. First, some otters playing.

Second, a mother gorilla and baby feeding.

Earlier this month, we headed to Yorkshire Wildlife Park. It’s fairly small, no where near the size of Chester Zoo or even Helsinki Zoo, but it does have “contact areas” in which you can go in and pet the animals.

A wallaby comes jumping across the path.

A capybara hides under a bridge after it was chased into the water by a rhea.

A lemur diving through the air.

A lemur jumping off the top of its house.

Elina holding hands with a wallaby.

Owls are such posers.

This photo was really dark, but trusting my histogram, when I brought it into Photoshop the detail came out far better than I was expecting.

An otter staring at his own reflection.

This lion was sleeping right next to the fence, then woke up and stuck his head up just long enough for me to take a photo.

This was through glass, but luckily it didn’t get in the way of his eyes.

This was just a gull, but I took this photo after it had just snatched some food and flown off with it.

Helsinki Zoo has some wonderful bears.

While in Torquay, we visited their costal zoo, Living Coasts. I had read some dubious reviews of it online, and some of the points were valid – they did have quite a few exhibits closed, above and beyond the otters that we knew would be missing when we entered. Kids might get a little bored too. But given the range of wildlife we got to see and the range of talks and feedings put on, I thought it was well worth the £11 we paid to get in and the pricing structure seems in proportion to what you would pay at Chester Zoo.

More photos from Chester Zoo, these ones have been cropped.