Bavaria Trip Report

Graaah!

Just finished processing my selects from the trip to Bavaria, and here are a few of them :) The trip out was slightly marred by the airline's computers going down, causing all the passengers to be booked in manually. Which was a royal pain. Not only that, the flight was delayed by several hours.

Winter in the park

Though the park itself is in Bavaria, the flight was to Prague, and were driven to the hotel (crossing the border), a trip that took about two and a half hours.

Purr.... are you my dinner?

Had dinner, then turned in for the night in preparation for a day of shooting.

Don't wanna wave the branch anymore.

3 primary targets were designated: Bears, Wolves and Lynxes. On the first day, we spent a few hours with the bears, followed by the wolves and the lynxes.

A wood splinter I found interesting. (300/4 + 1.4x)

There were many, many other critters as well, however the park is *really* big, and some of the enclosures are the largest I've ever visited in any park ever.

Om nom nom nom!

A few other critters include wildcats, otters, badgers, deer, bison, wild boar plus several more I was a little too distracted to take note. There were also some birds kept in avaries.

On the trail we go...

The gear brought along was more or less the same list from the previous post, except that I decided not to bring along the SB28 and remote triggers - no space, plus I really doubt I would have the chance to use 'em.

Paw and paw print.

The first day out I tried dual wielding the D300 + 300/4 (sometimes with the 1.4x) and D200 + 70-200VR. It was slightly annoying to carry around the 2nd body and lens, given that I have not yet figured out a convenient way of holstering it. Maybe one day, but the rest of the days I decided to use the long lenses on the D300, and left the 16-85 on the D200 for environment shots, but kept in my pack.

Don't hurt me :(

The enclosure for the wolves is very very big, at least the same size as the tiger enclosure in the Highland Wildlife Park, and is host to at least a dozen furballs.

Winter Leaves

Dominance in action.

I got what I came to shoot, side profiles, and head on/rear profiles of the wolves. Should be enough for my life drawing practice. There will be another open day at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust, will probably visit to see if I can get more close ups of the leg structure.

On the way home.

The following day saw us spending most of the time with the Lynx and Wolves, the bears having being very awsome and provided all of us with excellent shots. I caved in on the 2nd day and took a few waving shots...

Did you know bears can float?

Couldn't really get too into the lynx. Maybe because I'm more of a wolf person, not a cat person.

Lynx tail detail.

We wrapped up the 2nd day early as most of us were worn out from the activities of both days so far, and the weather was turning bad. As I was very hungry for some reason, I had a nice meal of Bratwurst, then proceeded to walk around town with the D200 + 16-85. Will post later, as there are a fair number of panos to process.

Resting up!

On the final day, we arrived at the park before 8, and again proceeded to check out the lynx and wolves, though some of the photographers went over to the bears. We left rather early that day, in order to make our flight back home.

Wolf in mist :P

Wish this trip could have been made at a better time but oh well.

GW