Tuesday 26 March 2013

Winter Wolves


I've just returned from a very enjoyable weekend visiting my sister in Kent and photographing a group of wolves at the Anglian Wolf Society.


My sister has really taken an interest in photography recently so for her Christmas present I paid for her to go on a one day photography course with Wild Arena, they offer courses photographing various animals but of course I chose my favourite subject of Wolves, I hasten to add that she does like them too! 

I travelled to Kent last Thursday before my sister and I made our way to the Anglian Wolf Society on the Friday to join a few more hardy souls braving the unseasonably cold weather! 
On our arrival we proceeded to add as many layers as possible to keep out the cold wind which was keeping temperatures to about -3, perfect for the Wolves but less so for us.
I must say that we could not have been looked after any better on the day by Peter from Wild Arena and the lovely volunteers from the Society, the never ending supply of hot coffee was much appreciated!

The society is only small but has four very well looked after Carpathian Wolves, two males and two females. They have two enclosures with one male and one female in each, they are very aware of each others presence and are not above letting the other couple know about the 'pecking order' especially at meal times!


        

This is me in my many layers, I'm not normally quite so chunky looking but at least I was relatively warm, although Cheza the Alpha male kept giving me very withering stares every time he passed me by!


By the end of the afternoon everyone was extremely cold but at least apart from the odd flurries the snow had managed to stay away and no day with Wolves would be complete without a howl or two!


Many thanks for a very enjoyable day to Wild Arena, the Anglian Wolf Society volunteers and especially Cheza, Peyto, Aiyana and Kaya the Wolves!

Wednesday 6 March 2013

All Finished

Well, I should have posted this earlier but here are a few more stages of my mural and the finished product. As you can see I got to have a bit of a workout up and down steps, never a bad thing!








Here's the final mural (above). I wanted it to be quite stylised like the old railway posters and be in tints rather than strong colours as I didn't want it to make the room smaller, it is meant to enhance rather than dominate, hopefully I have managed to achieve that!