Rock Hyrax

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and are ready for everything that 2015 has to offer. We had a lovely quiet Christmas which was much needed followed by my best friends wedding (link to the photos to follow soon) and a quiet New Year with a few drinks and Chinese takeaway with some friends. After a much needed break it is time to hit the ground running with so many exciting things planned for this year including sharing some more of my favourite images animal by animal and next up is the adorable Rock or Cape Hyrax (Procavia capensis).

The Cape hyrax also known as a dassie, is one of only four extant species in the order Hyracoidea and the only living species in the Genus Procavia. Despite looking like a small rodent, the closest living relatives of the hyrax are actually elephants and manatees and they have the most adorable little faces and characters.

On an early morning trip to a location to look for penguins, this small group of hyrax where on the rocks just before the main penguin colony and getting there nice and early they were quite curious about that strange thing pointing something at them.

This first image is of two hyrax sitting on the rocks, they have moist rubber soles to their feet which help them with their lives on the rocks and they love basking in the sun!

These next few images are of one rather inquisitive individual who I just adore, so much personality in something so small.

This last image was one I took on the way back from the penguins just sprawled out on the rocks watching the world go by, you can see their rubbery feet which are so vital when climbing around steep rock faces.

I really enjoyed the short time I had with this family but would love the opportunity to return and spend longer photographing the lives of these wonderful creatures around South Africa.

I hope you have enjoyed my images of the hyrax, still to come are penguins and a chameleon, but for now it's time to get back to processing the wedding photos.

Have a lovely day.

Victoria x

News and Autumn Colours

Hello,

It's been a while as things have been crazy busy over the last few weeks with the webinar, which was a great success and for anyone that wasn't able to join us I will post the link to the recorded version as soon as it is available for anyone that did join us thank you so much for making it fun and asking lots of great questions and I must say a huge thank you to Dave and Giorgio from the School of Xcellence for a great webinar.

I have just announced the first two dates for my Creative Nature workshops which will take place in April in Somerset, I will be covering many different aspects of getting creative with your subject and awakening your more creative side. The workshops will take place on Saturday 26th April and Sunday 27th April (both days are exactly the same) and the day costs just £80 per person with a maximum of 6 people per day. This price includes a full days tuition plus lunch, teas, coffees and biscuits. For more details or to book your place here's the link, I'm hoping to announce the dates for autumn soon.

Workshops

In other news the Christmas craft market season has started! Unfortunately due to other commitments the dates are limited this year, but as some of you know I do these markets with my mum and we combine our talents to create some truly unique gifts made with love perfect for that special someone many of which are only available through the craft markets. So here are the dates for the remaining markets this year:

Friday 29th November

Lady's Pamper Night, High Littleton Church Hall, 

High Littleton, BS39 6HF, 8pm - 11pm

Saturday 30th November

Warminster Civic Centre, BA12 8LB

Warminster, 10am — 5pm

Saturday 7th December

Bath Guildhall, BA1 5AW

Bath 10am - 4pm

Sunday 8th December

Salisbury Guildhall, SP1 1JH

Salisbury, 10am — 4pm

I now have just a handful of 2014 Borneo calendars left in stock and once they're gone they're gone, I will be taking them to the craft markets but they will also remain available through the shop on my website as are the last remaining packs of Christmas Cards featuring dormice. I do have a few small and large gifts sets available through my shop as well. 

I have also added three brand new canvas sets to my shop, these are sets of three full wrap high quality 10 x 10 inch canvases featuring either British wildlife in sepia, poppies or frogs from Borneo. Each set is made to order and costs just £130 which includes courier service and I will have the British wildlife and poppy sets at the craft markets, so here they are:

I'm looking to add more sets in the coming months along with different sizes, as soon as these are available I will let you know. There are going to be some big changes over the coming months with a complete re-vamp of this blog and website and the way that prints will be available. I'm working on this now and hoping to launch it all in the New Year with other exciting news for 2014. 

Everything is still going very well in Transylvania with the research, footage is coming in thick and fast and I am busy going through it all and putting together another article for my Explorers Journal. You can keep up to date my clicking on the link to the left of this page. So that's about it for news at the moment, I have started a brand new project which will be kept under wraps for now but what I will say is that it is based right here in Somerset! 

Despite being crazy busy, I have managed a couple of outings with my camera to capture some wonderful autumn colours, so I will leave you with just a couple of images to wet your appetite and will post more very soon including fungi and the odd bird. Whatever you get up to in the coming weeks, have fun, stay safe and hope to see you at one of the craft markets.  

Liquid Gold - A lone leaf drifting along among the golden reflections 

Green to Rusty - the changing colours of the leaves

The Mighty Oak - Taken through the branches and leaves of an ancient oak tree

The Colours of Autumn - Acer tree with beautiful red colours to encompass autumn

Artistic Autumn - variety of colours in just one tree

The Colour Gold - Sun lighting up the beautiful golden yellow colours of the leaves

Frogs, just frogs

Hello! Things have been a little hectic since my return from Romania a few weeks ago with getting stuff together for a fund-raising weekend and working on getting all the new stock together ready the autumn and Christmas craft markets. But I haven't forgotten about my promise of a post dedicated to frogs and here it is at last! All these images were taken in the pond in my parents garden so it just proves that you can create a wonderful wildlife habitat and don't need to go far for some wonderful images.For a long time I have wanted to photograph common frogs in duck weed, just one of those things I wanted to do and there certainly was a very thick blanket of the stuff on the pond. I had popped over to help clean up the pond and cut back the plants that had got wildly out of control and ended up spending a large amount of time photographing the froggies! Here are just a few of my favourite images from that afternoon/day working on the pond, I have to say they really are charismatic little creatures all slightly different in appearance and slightly different in attitude it would seem with oncoming closer and closer to the lens! Without further ado here they are both in colour and in black and white, enjoy! 

Well, I hope you enjoyed the images as much as I enjoyed taking them. I'm happy to say that we did complete the work we needed to on the pond that day although we are still working on some aspects to make it more wildlife friendly. Aside from the good population of frogs, there is at least one toad although a little camera shy, some newts and for the first time in years a dragonfly has been spotted! I feel I will be spending some time in over the next year investigating the pond and also the rest of the garden, you would be surprised how many of my images are taken so close to home! 

Time to go and get everything ready for the first craft market of the season, if you are in the area we will be at the Guildhall in Shaftesbury from 10am - 4pm with some of the new stock, including the brand new card collections and small gift sets. If you have not read it yet, my next journal entry is up and running just click on the Nat Geo link to the side of this post, it's all about arthropods and why there is so much diversity and abundance in Transylvania. 

I am now taking bookings for talks in 2014, so if you are a member of club that you think will be interested please do get in touch, I tailor every talk to the interests of the group I am talking too, so whether it's nature locally or from far flung places, I have something for everyone! 

Whatever you are up to, have a great weekend. 

Hedgehogs & Fawns

As promised here is the post dedicated to baby hedgehogs and deer fawns. Following my return from my last trip to Romania I went to pay the lovely people down at Secret World another visit to photograph the deer fawns for them and while I was there we took some shots of some baby hedgehogs that had come in the night before. I really cannot emphasize enough the vital work they carry out at Secret World, rescuing and taking in orphaned and injured wildlife, nursing them back to health when they can and then releasing them back to their nature habitat, the wild. I feel very privileged to be able to help them out by providing them with high quality and sometimes very different images to use in their publicity and fund raising. So, here goes with an overload of cuteness, and remember if you wish to purchase any of these images a donation from every sale will go to Secret World to help feed and care for the animals, just drop me a message.

There is going to be a big Winter Wonderland fundraising auction and ball on Saturday 2nd November at the Webbington Hotel to raise money for Secret World, hosted by BBC Presenter Tom Heap with both silent and main auctions. It promises to be a fantastic night of food, entertainment and great company and I will be there so how about booking your ticket now and joining us for the night, tickets are just £38!

So please come and join us and by having a great evening you will be helping these little guys and all their friends!