Through the Lens: A Wild Day Out at Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Hi everyone!
Photography has taken a bit of a back seat recently, and I have been absolutely longing to get my focus back. A day coach trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster popped up, and it felt like the perfect opportunity to brush off my camera kit, dust off my lens, and explore.
I hadn’t done much research into exactly what was at the park, so I was excited to walk around and see what there was to discover.
More Than Just Animals
I’ll be honest; the initial entrance was a bit misleading! It didn’t look very big at first glance, but how wrong I was!
The first area was quite a shock to find in a wildlife park… dinosaurs! We walked through a habitat filled with a large range of massive, roaring animatronics. I didn’t actually snap any photos of the prehistoric residents; I was too focused on remembering the names and figuring out which dinosaurs traumatised me back when I used to play Ark: Evolved!
Our first encounter with actual living (non-prehistoric) animals was a family of Gelada monkeys parading out of their dens. It was very clear to see exactly who was in charge of this tribe.
What followed next was nothing short of adorable! A couple of the monkeys were carrying babies hitchhiking on their backs, while others were chasing each other around.
Across from the Geladas was a vast habitat that appeared completely empty, until a spotted Hyena popped their head up from their mound during a nap. I had always feared hyenas (yes, I blame The Lion King!), but this one looked surprisingly chilled out for a predator!
The Big Cats and High Tops
After a trek over a bridge that felt like it would never end, we met a truly stunning Amur tiger. It laid resting on the hill, almost appearing to smile at us before getting up to patrol a clear ‘desire path‘ around its enclosure.
After watching this majestic creature for a while, we moved on, and we had to look up for our next shot. Jumping through the tree canopy, we encountered a pair of beautiful Roloway monkeys.
My Absolute Highlight: The Polar Bears
Next up was what I consider to be the highlight of the whole trip. I never really thought of polar bears as one of my favorite animals, but they absolutely are now. We stayed around them for a long time; honestly, I could have spent all day just watching them. They looked so gentle, yet unmistakably powerful.
This guy, in particular, was having a marvelous time swimming in the lake.
Tiny But Fierce (and a Focus Challenge!)
When I was finally dragged away from the polar bears, we discovered something a little smaller, but equally fierce in its own way. This little meerkat was absolutely furious that a bee had the audacity to enter its home!
This is probably my favorite photograph from the whole trip, but it does illustrate one of the struggles with wildlife photography—I’m disappointed that it isn’t perfectly in focus. It was such a quick moment that I missed the sharpest shot, but it was too good not to share. I just wish I could share the tiny growl coming from him alongside the photo!
From the tiny “kats” to the actual big cats. We next visited the lions, who were all relaxing in the sun
They might be big, but they are just cats at heart. Although, I’m not entirely sure I would attempt to rub this one’s belly!
We then moved on to seeing the rhinos and a camel. Pro tip for animal photographers: Camels are the absolute best chewers when it comes to getting expressive faces for pictures!
The Noisiest Final Act
Our final stop was to see the very noisy sea lions. These were so fun to watch and immensely photogenic. We had one throwing around a rock then diving for it, and then there seemed to be a minor (and very loud) disagreement among the group.
There were so many more other animals we saw that I couldn’t include all the photos here. One animal I really wanted to shoot was the giraffes. Unfortunately, they were staying inside behind their feeders, so I only got to see their heads occasionally popping out, which wasn’t great for photography.
The park is absolutely huge! It was an exhausting but amazing day out. We actually missed one whole area when we realized we were near the exit and simply too tired to head back to it. I am already excited to visit again and conquer the rest of the park!
