Fox cubs in evening sunlight

Our third and final workshop at the British Wildlife Centre was with another photography group – this was by far the largest group I had been with and I was concerned about how many photo opportunities we would be able to get.  But with the exception of one ignoramus, it turned out to be ok.  We haven’t been especially lucky with the weather on our last few photographic expeditions and today was no exception.  As we went through the health and safety talk (which we could barely hear over the extremely loud thunder), the rain came down like a monsoon.

The rain eventually went away enabling us to commence our first session with Flo, Frodo and their 4 cubs.

Given I was only at the British Wildlife Centre less than a fortnight ago, I was pleased to see that the cubs still looked “young”.  Babies grow up too fast in my opinion.

Not wanting to overfeed the cubs so that they wouldn’t come out in the evening, we moved on to see the otters.

Honey the badger cub. This is where the size of the group became a slight issue.  There were simply too many of us and not enough space to get decent shots of her.  It didn’t help that Honey was obsessed with the keeper’s legs and kept wanting to climb them!

Velvet the Polecat recently gave birth to 7 kittens.  We had hoped to see them today but mum was too hungry and kept eating all the food rather than taking it to her babies.

The British Wildlife Centre have been extremely unlucky with their wildcats this year.  Both Kendra and her sister Iona lost their litters and their respective mates, Lex and Angus.  Iona has now moved in with Kendra, leaving the enclosure that she used to share with Angus free for her litter from last year to occupy.

We hadn’t expected to see Kendra as she had been having a bad week.  First, she had been netted so that she could be vaccinated and then her sister had moved in with her.  But to our surprise, she came out to greet us.

We didn’t stay long with her as we didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary stress.  Plus, it was time to go back to the fox cubs for our second session with them.

All four cubs will be re-homed at the end of the summer, when they are just a bit too big for the enclosure and boisterous for the parents, so this really was our last chance to see them before they leave.

I hadn’t fully appreciated just how tiny the little owls were, or how cute! And that’s saying something considering I have a bird phobia!

With the light fading fast, the Tawny Owl was our last subject.

In spite of the weather, it was another good photographic day. I was especially glad to be able to get some more pictures of Flo and Frodo’s cubs before they leave for their new homes.  We currently don’t have any plans to go back to the British Wildlife Centre this year but if there is an opportunity to photograph Velvet’s kits and Isla and Richie Jr (Iona’s litter from last year), then the situation may change.