We recently had an outing to the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and Merrie, Tess and I went and were sorry that rebeKah was unable to join us as originally planned. Tess and I had been there before, about a year ago but this year it was dreadfully hot. Probably not the best time of year to go as the animals tend to be more sluggish in the heat and seek out the shade.
And who can blame them?
There is a 9 mile drive through the 1,800 acres and all of the shooting is done from the car. We had the windows down and the air conditioning going and managed to stay relatively comfortable.
We had a bag of food that was purchased there to feed them and what a fun day we had! I will post some of our favorite photos from the day.
We plan on returning in the fall when it is cooler.
Twins
(Photo by Tess)
“Hey Jude” was playing on the radio when Tess spotted a deer and in her loudest voice she yells… “Hey Jude!” and the deer immediately looked up!
“Hey Jude!”
(Photo by Tess)
In Unison
(Photo by Tess)
What????
(Photo by Tess)
Just Taking It Easy
(Photo by Tess)
The cheetahs are behind a fence and do not run wild like the rest of the animals but we noticed that one of the cheetahs kept running into the chain link fence. At first we thought he just turned quickly and bumped into it, but when he continued to walk into it, we realized he had a problem. The gal who works at the center told us that he had glaucoma and they had to remove his eyes and suture the lids closed. So this poor cheetah is blind. It was all so sad and Tess got a close up shot through the fence.
Blind Cheetah
(Photo by Tess)
c w p c 
Great captures Tess.
The shot you got of the cheetah is so sad. I feel so bad for him.
Thanks Lala. Yes, that blind cheetah was so sad. Wish we can do something for him.
We had a blast that time and who will forget “Hey Jude”?. For those who were not there, the reason his name is Hey Jude was that whe we found him, Lala’s radio was playing the Hey Jude by the Beatles and then we called him Hey Jude. LOL
That was really funny!
Tess,
Neat shots! So your singing got some of their attention! (HaHa). I like your “twins”. I also especially like the “Just taking it easy” photo! It’s so relaxing to look at!!!
Lorraine,
Probably the singing got their attention to the might be thinking who the heck was singing so bad. LOL.
Thanks for the kind comment.
Great shots Tessie! I felt so bad for the cheetah. It was so sad to see him keep walking into the fence. How were you able to shoot through the fence from the car?
Thanks a lot Merrie. I don’t know what is the technical name of the process, but you can blur the fence by focusing the object and isolate the distractions. Lala was the one who thought me how to do it when we were at the Dallas Zoo.
Hey Merrie… it sometimes works if the animal is a distance from the fence and you use a relatively shallow depth of field to “get rid of the fence” and focus on the subject. Tess’s settings on the cheetah shot was ISO 250, F8, 1/500sec. shot at 370mm.
Fun photos Tess! Great job as always! 🙂
Thanks Donna. Although the next time is gonna be my third time to visit Fossil Rim, I will still go in a heartbeat. I love that place.