Neil Danton

I don’t do a post every time I document a new arrival at Fota Wildlife Park, honest, but it’s not every time I do it that I get the front page of the Irish Times with one of the images!

Time is tight at the moment as I’m in headless-chicken mode with so many shoots on, so this is just a slammer post as I’m a day (or even two) late with posting here.

This is the latest arrival – an as yet unnamed baby male giraffe with his mother Sapphire:

That was the Irish Times splash, and here’s another of him having a rather awkward looking run-around:

You lookin’ at me?:

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OK, so that post title might be meaningless for non UK/Ireland residents, you might have to use the big G to search for Compare the Meerkats to get the connection

Always delighted to go and shoot the new residents at Fota Wildlife Park. The only problem with the location of their home is that it’s only possible to shoot them through either perspex or a chain-link fence. I chose the fence. All things considered then, I’m not too unhappy with the results.

It’s fascinating to watch meerkats for a good period of time. It was quite a time too. Ideally I wanted two of them together to relate to the story, but they don’t stay in one spot for very long, apart from the one on guard-duty. It stays in one spot on the look-out for predators, while the others get on with their business.

I was there just before Valentine’s Day. On that basis the rest of this post will de-generate somewhat.

“I’m expecting a card. Where’s the postman?”:

“He’ll be along any minute now. Is that him?”:

“Maybe he’s delivering to the tradesmen’s entrance. That’s over there isn’t it?:

“What about airmail. D’ya think it might be arriving by airmail?”:

“You keep an eye out that way, and I’ll look…”:

“Here he comes, HERE HE COMES, this is definitely him”:

“Wayhay! I got a card”:

“Aww, thanks for my card, you’re the best”:

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Yes yes I know you’ve only recently had an animal pic, but this one is just soooo cute.

Obviously he’s not really a Teddy Bear, he’s a Red Panda, born two months ago to mother Binthy and father Bamboo:

Father Bamboo is believed to be one of the oldest Red Pandas to breed in captivity. Mother Binthy was unable to produce enough milk for the baby and so he has been taken into care at the incubation centre at Fota Wildlife Park:

Visitors can see him at the Park, together with his new best friend, a toy polar bear:

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and super heroes.

I recently read something by a PR contact of mine complaining about the fee that “celebrities” charge to attend/launch/endorse a product or service and it got me thinking about the times that I’ve done a shoot where the opposite is true.

The difference? The celebs in my cases have been sports people, who give their time and support generously in aid of a good cause:

In this case the shoot was to promote a SuperHero fun run that was initiated by a young lady who has successfully received treatment at Crumlin Hospital and wanted to organise something to show her gratitude and support the Children’s Cancer Fund of the hospital. We were supposed to have the help of a couple of Munster Rugby players and a couple of Cork City soccer players, but ended up with 2 from Munster Rugby (Denis Hurley and Tomás O’Leary above), 3 from Cork City FC, and 2 high-profile Cork GAA players. One GAA player volunteered to come along as he was a friend of the family, and the other came along just because the first one mentioned it to him!

Before I forget, we also had the very lovely Laura Mitchell, the Cork Rose of Tralee entrant. She is probably the 10th Rose entrant that I’ve had the pleasure of shooting at one time or another. Those girls really do their bit for good causes, and are always so nice to work with.

The shoot was total mayhem, trying to juggle the sports guys arrival time and departure time in order to get to training, but it all worked out nicely in the end.

If you feel like walking or running 5K for charity, participants are encouraged to dress up as their favourite SuperHero and to participate in the Super Hero Fun Run will take place at Fota Wildlife Park on Saturday, 18th Sept 2010 and you can find more information on the Children’s Medical & Research Foundation web-page.

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One of the nicest shoots I get to do on a fairly regular basis is to document the new arrivals at Fota Wildlife Park. Here is the latest, a baby Lar Gibbon:

There’s usually two things you need for photographing animals, a big lens and patience.

I had to wait a while for mother & baby to emerge from their den, but had the close-up shot of baby fairly quickly. It then took quite some time to get a shot of mother & baby together. Due to the way baby is carried, I ended up with lots of shots where baby’s face was visible, or mother’s face was visible, but not both together that was clear enough that I was happy with the shot.

After a while though, when mother went to investigate some new leaves for breakfast, they moved into a good position and I had the shot I wanted. As soon as it happens, I just get a 6th sense that I’ve nailed it:

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Not the Pelican Brief which was a movie, and it’s not called the Pelican Run, it’s called the Cheetah Run. (This post follows on from a recent one about last year’s run entitled Runners in the Park).

It’s a road-race through Fota Wildlife Park, but I wasn’t going into the Cheetah area to create an image, so I chose Pelicans instead, as they don’t have claws. Like the title of the movie though, I’ll be brief, so here it is:

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…even the ash cloud.

Pedro and Mo are finally united in love after the ash cloud banjaxed their plans to be together.

Pedro moved to Cork from France and Mo was supposed to join him seven weeks later from England, but flight cancellations caused by THAT volcano’s ash cloud over Europe meant she couldn’t get out via Heathrow.

Two weeks after she was supposed to join him, they are finally together.

Pedro and Mo are…….. Black Howler Monkeys:

The Black Howler Monkeys are the first new species to arrive at Fota Wildlife Park in 2010 and live on a island opposite the penguins in the park.

The Black Howler Monkey is one of six species of Howler Monkey, who can be found in central South American bush savannah, deciduous and semi-deciduous forests. The male is black, while the female is brown or gold.

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A bit of Friday fun – this image is several years old now, but I was driving down the same stretch of road yesterday and was reminded of this road-sign.

It’s genuine, no image manipulation whatsoever. I was assigned to shoot it by a newspaper that had received a report about it. It took me a few moments to figure out what the interest in it was.

It had me laughing all the way back home to think of someone going to all the secretive effort it must have taken, just to amuse themselves and others.

If you still can’t see-for-looking, check the available recreational facilities carefully…

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10 day old baby giraffe Aoife with mother Roisin at Fota Wildlife Park.

As Fota is a client, I was given exclusive access to the giraffe house to get images of the new arrival. It took a little time as mother is obviously very protective and they must be approached very slowly. There was a little snorting & tail swishing to begin with, but as soon as I stopped doing that the giraffes settled down.

There’s a different image on my Facebook page

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…again.

See the previous Monkeying around here at On Safari

This time it was a newly born lion-tailed Macaque that I needed to capture for a press-release.

It took ages to find it though. Firstly it was pretty small, and a long way away as the Macaque community live on an island in the wildlife park. Plus, the mother was being pretty protective.

Finally though I got a glimpse of it (I say it, as the sex is as yet undetermined).

Fairly sure it was the mother at left, and the father at right, although it was a little hard to tell, as in a way that’s typical of a lot of primates, the whole clan seemed to get involved in baby-sitting.

The peek-a-boo moment below though was definitely with the mother.

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