Nicey-Nicey Zoo-Zoo

Yep, the title is a 'Mighty Boosh' nod.  We've been looking to go a bit further afield whilst we are on our semi-regular visits to Wales, and in the spirit of this plan, we headed out during the summer to the Welsh Mountain Zoo near Llandudno.  Largely because we saw it on a re-run of "Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience" on the BBC Iplayer.

It's an interesting place, far bigger than it looks from the (hair-raisingly tiny) road.  A nice variety of animals too, with some inventive tanks and enclosures.  The sea-lion tank in particular, with several large windows to watch them swimming around, was a hit with The Childs.  

The sea lion show was popular with guests, we managed to secure a decent spot on the front row.

In the absence of us being able to have time/money to become legit wildlife photographers, this will have to do.

The following few are from a forthcoming series called "sultry poses by seaborne wildlife".

There might be a niche calendar in this one.

Blue Steel?

Having had enough of photographing the Sea Lion equivalent of Kate Moss, we headed indoors.  The reptiles were a bit tricky to photograph; the room was dark, and the crowds meant that (with Covid measures) it was a case of race through the reptile house...

Where animals like the bears were sitting in places you couldn't easily photograph them, and the snow leopards were hiding indoors, we found we could rely on the penguins to be entertaining.

I'm sure if I was anti-animal-conservation I could spin this into a pic for a campaign leaflet, but honestly the penguins had plenty of room, and seemed very happy (if smelly).  The honest reason I didn't get the camera any closer was because I didn't want a penguin to try and bite my fingers off.

The penguin tank was another that featured large glass windows, certainly easier than messing around with underwater cameras, assuming we'd be stupid enough to climb up and stick our arms in the water.  Which, admittedly, we saw some other parents doing with their small child.  Maybe they were using their son as bait to catch a penguin, who knows.

Slightly less-sultry expression than the sea lion.

Well it was a nice place to visit, and gives us a chance to get some animal shots... what with it being highly unlikely we'll have the free time to be the sort of photographers who can sit on a rock off the coast for days and days with a bazooka-like zoom lens to get the perfect sunrise shot of an albatross or something.  Might be somewhere we do a return visit to in the future, where hopefully the crowds of Staycationing visitors will be a little smaller, and you can actually get a good view of some of the enclosures or not have to queue an hour for the gift shop.