Principally Primates

Another day at Paignton Zoo

28th March 2013

 

Each time I visit a zoo I learn a bit more - it may be about the best time to see an animal or the best place to stand to view or photograph a particular enclosure. I try to remember each point for future visits, but I also keep my eyes open and look for fresh opportunities.
The Allen's swamp monkeys gave me an example. Their enclosure is roughly triangular and is bordered by streams and hotwire barriers, which are good for photography. The island has a large fallen tree trunk and a thick covering of low shrubs (I think it's an evergreen Cotoneaster) where the monkeys spend a lot of time foraging. As I walked up I saw that they were shut outside while a keeper was cleaning their house. The little female kept climbing on top of the tree truck, looking along the path and calling. She was at a nice distance for a shot with my 500mm lens except that I had to look directly into the sun, I had a look through the viewfinder and I saw that the small leaves of the shrubs reflecting the sunlight made an interesting background and the light passing through the long hairs around her head made a partial halo. A purely pictorial effect, but I liked it. The potential problems were catching her mouth open and giving the right exposure to show the details of her face. A quick trial shot and a histogram check showed that my Nikon's exposure was good for this contre-jour lighting, so then it just took patience to shoot a series as she repeatedly returned to her vantage point and called (until another keeper arrived with their feed).

The ability to check exposure and framing is one of the great advantages of digital photography: the photographer's term for this activity is one of my favourites, because looking at your images can be exciting if you happen to see one or two good ones so you naturally make "oo oo" noises, hence the name is chimping :) You just have to try to contain your excitement.

I avoid chimping, but I would be happy to gorilla if I could. My favourite subject 'Kumbuka' was out in spite of the cold. Now that he is a silverback, he has to kept on his own so that he can't challenge the dominant male 'Pertinax' or disturb the hierarchy of the blackback males. He has first use of the island in the morning, but he goes into his den for lunch and the other gorillas go outside in the afternoon. I may be wrong to use the present tense here as he may already have gone to Regents Park to lead London's gorilla group. He is a very handsome animal and he is genetically important as he and his half brother are the only surviving offspring of a wild-caught male, so it would be very welcome if he breeds with 'Effie' and 'Mujukuu'. For various reasons the last three males at ZSL have not been successful, so everyone hopes he will become a good group leader and eventually a father there.

I tried to get contre-jour shots of his breath condensing in the cold air, but it didn't show up well. The alternative was to shoot from the other side of the island with the sun behind me. This shot pleases me, I think because the angle of his head shows the height of his crest and it also allows the light from the sun (still quite low in the sky) to illuminate his eyes.

I think I realised subconsciously that it was primate portrait day. I was soon in Monkey Heights working on the white-faced saki monkeys, this is a subadult (only adult males have white faces). This was shot through very fine mesh, almost at the minimum focus distance for the 500mm. I love this lens because it is very sharp and because it simplifies the composition of the images, making them very direct.

I think this is 'Katya' a female cherry-crowned mangabey. The zoo has a nice group of these attractive monkeys with a newborn infant too. Unfortunately for some reason they have the habit of plucking the red hairs from their crowns, which really spoils their looks. 'Katya' is the only one who has escaped. I love her sweeping whiskers. Shot through green-painted, heavy-gauge wire - but I don't think you can tell from the image. It's a pity I clipped the tips of the hairs on her crown.

I couldn't pass by this grey-winged trumpeter. It had flown up to a perch and it was sunbathing with its wings spread. I managed to include a glimpse of the tuft of blue feathers on the breast of the bird - the only bright colour in its sombre plumage. I have tried to convince myself that I don't mind the tartan background (wire mesh, vegetation and sky) - without complete success.

This shot was a bit of an afterthought near the end of my visit after clouds had obscured the sun. The yellow-shouldered amazon is a real rara avis and I wanted a record shot. The framing was difficult as they were at the back of their aviary and I was shooting between their perches. It's far from brilliant, but I feel that the combination of the individual poses makes it a little more than a record.

Diffuse light from a cloudy sky suits some creatures. I had put the long lens away and just used the 105mm for this shot of a red panda which came quite close to pose. It's easy to overexpose the white face and lose highlight detail in bright sunlight, but this lighting worked nicely and the evergreens in the enclosure provide both foreground and background.

. . . and a little bonus

The ostrich and zebra paddock was very popular with wild birds. Apart from the inevitable herring gulls and wood pigeons, it also attracted magpies, a robin, blackbirds, a song thrush and a splendid pair of mistle thrushes. One of them came well within the range of my 500mm with hastily fitted 1.4x converter.