British Wildlife Centre

The British Wildlife Centre is in Lingfield Surrey . It is open to the public at weekends and during the school holidays. During term time many schools visit but certain days are set aside for photography days. Today we went on one. It was a wonderful experience, places are limited to 20 and you are allowed in the enclosures with the keepers to take your photographs. Most of the other photographers had lenses as long as your arm, but you get so close to the animals you really don't need them. At one point an otter was nibbling my shoe! The day is well planned you arrive at 9.30 to register and have coffee and they explain how the day will proceed. First we all went to the Fox enclosure and they had 7 week old cubs.....which we saw and I have got some photos which I will put up later. After about an hour they split us into two groups. We went to see the otters and the deer. It was then lunch time. We had about two hours for lunch and we were able to wander around looking at the animals. At 2pm we all met up and they brought a barn owl and a little owl out , we then split up again and we moved into the Scottish wildcats enclosures for about an hour, before moving on to the weasels, stoats , polecats, pinemartins and the reptiles. At 4pm they fed the badgers and then we had about 30 mins to wander around before going home. I took about 800 photos and have already discarded about 200 of them but I have so many good photos I will be posting more once I have sorted through them If you are able to go on one of their photography days I would really recommend it . It was worth the long drive in heavy traffic. it was probably one of the hottest days so far this year and at times the sun was too bright , but the staff give you plenty of time to take your photos and try to make sure everyone gets a good position for at least some of the time.