I feel very blessed to live near such an established location in Yorkshire. The ‘Yorkshire Wildlife Park’ is well known to most in Yorkshire and is common words to anyone that lives in south Yorkshire. For most people in Doncaster is a mere 20 minutes away from the main gates and hearing the lions roar. I adore the place although I’ve only been three times. Most people whom have grown up around the park are used to going every summer or so… which of course can take the shine of the place. Take it from someone who used to live in the Shire where it was a good 20 minutes in a car to a local shop, I think it’s amazing, very few places have wildlife parks right near a housing estate after all.

So although I’m sure most people know all about it, I’m going to write as if it’s for the people whom have never been before: it really is a lovely day out (as long as the sun stays out). YWP is huge for where it is and what it used to be, before 2009 it was a simple farm and over the winter leading up to 2009 it became what we know and love as YWP. With over 300 animals on site (and constantly upgrading) it’s been in the eye of the media for many reasons the most recent one was of course: the first Polar bear (They now have like 6?!) Name an animal and there is a good chance you will be able to see it here – the main ones they don’t have are Gorillas or an Elephant! The park has some wonderful features with a ‘Wallaby walkabout’ where they will literally hop across your path and you can give them a stroke, same with lemur area although I wouldn’t give them a tough apparently they bite!

For £15 per person you can stay as long as you want, with a large gift shop and several food places onsite you can truly spend the entire day here taking in the animals and wandering around to catch feeding times. When we went the weather was over cast but still relatively warm which I was so thankful for, the other two times I’ve been it was raining and cold so most the animals didn’t want to come say hello to anyone. I will be timing it with the weather and themed events (which they do often) For my trip last time it was ‘Alice in wonderland’ which was killing two birds with one stone, I adore anything surrounding ‘Alice in wonderland’ be it the old school books or the new ‘Tim Burton’ films. They had Helter skelters, face painting and tea parties among other thing. They even had people in big costumes walking around talking to people and putting on shows.

Sadly, I was here for one reason… The animals. Wanting to be a wildlife photographer is hard in England, unlike America (or somewhere like that) I can’t walk far enough out and hope to find a bear. The most I might get is a fox or badger which as beautiful as any creature isn’t as mind blowing as a white wolf. I understand it takes time and patience (and most of the time a lot of money) but I’m trying to practise in as many ways as possible and if going to zoo, safari parks and wildlife parks helps me learn about the animal’s behaviours and I can get the odd good photo… I’m happy.

This trip taught me a lot about myself if I’m honest, I’m so impatient. I often expect the photo to line its self up for me as soon as I get my camera out. Which doesn’t happen at all in this type of work. Many times I put my camera down puffing I never got a good enough shot because the animals aren’t doing much to find them start to roll around a minute later, that’s just karma showing me to take things slower.

I fell in love with these two little meerkats as soon as I laid eyes on them at first they were running round together in both the inside and outside enclosures and then they climbed up onto a rock and laid like this. I have no idea is this is normal behaviour or how old they could be (pretty sure they aren’t full adults) but I got 2 different angles and I think it looks like the traditional post card Meerkat image which I love! Meerkats are everywhere recently so they are commonly photographed but they are still loved by the masses…I believe the thanks go to Alexander!

I stood for ages trying to get a good image of the adults with the baby in the pouch – I mean Tom had to drag me by my ear away by the end of it. I’m not over the moon with the first image but I was the best one I managed to capture, I do think its slightly original as you see most images of mother and child stood up. It took forever in Photoshop to crop it perfectly as although I attempted to lay it out while taking the photo, trying to do that and get some characteristics captured is hard so the layout on the original photo just didn’t work for me. I really like the second one though, every time I look at it I just think of Wallaby gang wars and I start doing a little chuckle.

Inside the lemur enclosure there was this big guy whom refused to move for the keepers and just plonked himself a ft. away from the path and laid out on this back. We called him Steve and I wanted to take him home. He was super sweet and just sat while I photographed him, I often like to take photos of animals If I can get more of a personality captured. I think that worked in this image.

Each one of these photos where extra hard to take because of the wire fence all the way around the enclosure. I had to change my aperture level to a degree I never thought I would be happy to photograph with… purely because of no practise. I attempted to get rid of as much of the wiring as possible and focus on the animals. I tried to keep these images as natural as possible because I’m so proud of how they came out on the camera before any tweaking in Photoshop. The Tigers where so content when we got there, jumping round and playing with each other. It’s natural behaviour that I hadn’t witnessed before, which made photographing it very hard at first. I got the hang of it over time noticing small tail dips which come just before one tiger would jump on another.

At one part of the tiger enclosure you walk up a ramp and round on a wooden bridge, this brings you over the metal fencing but from a photographer’s point of view it’s not great most the time. The angle of looking down onto an animal instantly makes it look less natural, you can tell straight away its been done at a zoo. I would never lie and say my photos are of wild animals but I like to make them as natural looking as possible.

The lions where super hard to capture all of them where sat high up on rocks and not doing much. It tried to get a few images but it had just started to rain too! I’m all staying out to get a good image but I hadn’t brought my waterproof overalls for my camera or bag! Rookie mistake not been prepared!

So that’s all my images, I hope you enjoyed reading this and feel free to leave me any comments!

I’d love to hear your feedback!!

Kerriss brown xo