A little while ago, and for reasons I don’t particularly remember, my wife was given an experience day voucher by her work. She ultimately chose to visit the Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent to feed some big cats. Me and our kid tagged along, partly because I was going to photograph her doing it, but mostly because I was needed to drive her there in the first place.
As you can probably guess by the fact you’re even reading this, there were enough big cat photographic opportunities for me to get some decent pictures. This trip took place back in April 2023, so I was still shooting with my trusty 60D at that point.
We were able to get up close and personal with a variety of big cats. The problem with that is that with a lot of them being close to the fences that separated them from us, it wasn’t possible to shoot through the fences as I normally would when shooting captive wildlife, so there are quite a few fences in this post.
The fence notwithstanding, I was able to capture some majestic expressions on the lion’s face.
In an adjacent pen was a female. she was further away, but not far enough from the fence to shoot through it completely.
Now whilst my ability to recognise species is legendarily bad, I am at least vaguely familiar with most of the better known big cats. That said, some of the lesser known ones still flummox me. So I’m not really sure what this is.
Nor this guy, for that matter.
Now even I’m able to recognise a tiger when I see one. Unless I’m wrong and this isn’t a tiger.
Part of the experience day was that my wife would be able to feed a couple of the cats. This tiger was her first choice.
After his lunch he went and got himself comfortable. Or he sulked that he only got one drumstick.
Luckily this meant he was far enough away that I could, just about, shoot through the fence without too many problems.
Eventually he had a post-lunch nap.
The next cat we saw was this leopard.
Who blessed us with a derpy face whilst scratching.
Some of the ‘big’ cats were really just smaller wildcats. This one was not too keen on spending any time with us.
This next leopard, whilst majestic, insisted on sitting right next to the fence, and in bright sunlight too.
At least I could get a decent closeup in which the fence added to the atmosphere of the shot.
(Probably worth a quick reminder this is a sanctuary and these cats are in the best place for them, even if the shot above looks a bit like an RSPCA advert.)
We came to another pen with another tiger in it.
Like some of the other cats, he held some interesting poses of you can zone out the fences.
Nearby was by far the most interesting and beautiful of the cats there – this white tiger.
Luckily whilst I was looking at him, he let out a big yawn.
The white tiger was quite a sight. Shame about the fence. Well, in the sense of the photograph. I was quite glad it was there stopping me being eaten.
Near to this section was a larger pen with a few lions in it having some lunch.
They weren’t the only ones having a meal, this leopard was as well.
And with that, it was time for us to leave as well. My wife certainly enjoyed her day out, and I am pretty pleased with the images I got from it too, although the persistent fences do take the edge off quite a few of these photographs. Perhaps I’m spoilt by experiences such as the trip I took to Woburn many moons ago where I was able to photograph big cats from inside their habitats.
You can see the full set of images in the gallery below.
