The Wildwood Trust is a conservation organisation based in 42 acres of deciduous woodland on the outskirts of Canterbury in Kent. The charity’s mission is to educate visitors about both current and extinct native British wild animals. And, with over 50 species on site, there are plenty of opportunities to try your hand at photographing British wild animals.
They aren’t ‘wild’ as such here, of course; there’s very much a zoo-like feel as you walk along the winding path among the enclosures. But if you can’t get out to the plains of the Serengeti or the waterways of the Okavango for your wild animal photography fix then practising on the bears and bison of Kent is at least a start.
Yes, bears and bison, you heard that right. Along with reindeer, arctic foxes, even wallabies* as well as species you can still see in small pockets around the country – if you know where to look – like red squirrels, beavers, pine martens, storks, cranes and choughs. It’s hard to believe all these species were once an integral part of the woodlands and grasslands of ancient Britain, living in tune with each other and keeping ecosystems healthy and balanced.
Why would I want to take photos at Wildwood?
One of the ways to create great wildlife photography is to capture an insight into the character of the creature with an intimate portrait. To do this well in the wild, you need to put in the hours watching, waiting, understanding and learning their behaviour all while hoping the light and conditions will come together at the exact moment of compositional perfection. Here at Wildwood, though, you can get close enough to the animals that will allow you to make some creative animal portraits at close quarters.
With a standard telephoto lens that zooms into 300mm you can get super close to many of the creatures, including the reindeer and many deer species. Given that opening hours are more inline with visitor day trips, you’re more likely to encounter the animals in their daytime resting poses than their active phases in the early morning and evening. The arctic foxes looked super chilled on their bed of twigs and the wallabies were content bathing in the morning sunshine.
But that’s also the downside of using captive animals to practise wildlife photography, they’re so docile and habituated to humans that it’s difficult to create an image that feels wild at all. Another problem for photographers attempting to capture something of the behaviour and character of these animals isn’t just the lack of activity, though, it’s the extensive wire fences between the viewing area and the animals themselves.
What can I photograph at Wildwood?
When you first walk into the site, there are a number of tightly meshed bird enclosures which are home to storks, choughs, egrets and rooks. My autofocus was more intent on the mesh than the birds. There’s a viewing window on to one of the aviaries but the glass isn’t quite clean enough to shoot through and leaves a little bit of a colour cast that can be sorted out in post production.
It wasn’t until I reached the crane enclosure (with a sleeping stork in the corner) that there was an opportunity to take a picture unimpeded by wire. But the background was so obviously not ‘wild’ and even with a serious amount of cropping and adjusting in Lightroom later on, I still couldn’t quite create an image I was happy with.
Although this stork obliged with staying still while I took a photo, it was impossible to crop in such a way as to eliminate the background enclosure.
The adorably fluffy arctic foxes were snoozing in full view in an enclosure with slightly wider wire. But when I found the perfect hole to put the lens through, I discovered that there was foliage in the way. From another angle I could create a composition with both foxes in but the inevitable effects of the wire was still visible in the shot.
The lone bison, owing to its size no doubt, lives in a much more open space but the only way to get a picture that didn’t look like it was in an enclosure was to zoom in for an intimate portrait. It locked on to my eyes and obliged with this rather stern look. I enjoyed watching the visible air come from its breath in the cold winter day but it didn’t really make for any better a portrait.
Opposite the bison were families of wallabies and deer in adjacent enclosures. Both had thicker doubled up wire up to knee height which meant that eye-level portraits were out. But the wire up to waist height had much bigger squares of view though which to poke the long lens which led to a few ok portrait studies.
It was the red deer enclosure that looked the most realistic. Even if it was a little muddy from months of winter traipsing.
The wolf enclosure certainly looked too small for the tight-knit pack that prowled and padded around it with the most amount of alertness I’d seen of any animal so far. You can see them through a screen at eye level which made a bit of colour cast on the images but did allow me to get some intimate behavioural pictures. You can also view them from above from the wooden crenellated viewing platform.
The closest I got to observing any kind of interesting animal behaviour was when the initially affectionate wolves suddenly started brawling. I was sat in a viewing area at eye level but there was a glass panel separating me from the wolves which led to a bit of blur and colour casting on these images.
The bears were in ‘torpor’ when I visited. This is just the technical term for ‘chilling and taking it easy over winter’. They don’t hibernate as such but their heart rate and breathing slows and they sleep a lot. I deduced that we have a lot to learn from bears and I might take a leaf out of their book for the rest of January. Anyway, they had been taken elsewhere for the winter so I didn’t get a chance to see them.
There were quite a few other creatures taking it easy when I visited: the badgers, red squirrels, beavers, otters, polecats, mink, hedgehogs and wild cats were not to be seen. I did get a small glimpse of a lynx though.
Should I visit Wildwood with my camera?
Yes, absolutely. While it might not be as exciting as spotting the animals in the wild, it’s a great place to practise before you head off on that trip-of-a-lifetime safari. Plus, as a conservation organisation, you’re contributing to the greater understanding of native British wildlife.
As is a conservation charity, Wildwood is dedicated to conserving British wildlife. Their mission statement is to bring the joy of the ancient, native British wildlife to a wider public through immersive exhibits and education. The handy info panels that accompany each creature gives you contextual information on how they contribute to the wider ecosystem. They’re also striving to reverse biodiversity loss and to support rewilding programmes around the country and you can learn all about why land management with reintroductions of species is an important part of addressing climate change and ecosystem balance. In fact, though a partnership with the Kent Wildlife Trust, the adjacent woodlands of Blean will soon be home to four rewilded bison, and it’s thanks to conservation research at Wildwood. Another project they’re involved in will see choughs, the red billed and footed members of the crow family, reintroduced to the white cliffs of the Kentish coast near Dover.
When’s the best time to visit?
When I visited, it was a surprisingly sunny weekday in the depths of an otherwise bleak January. Given that the site doesn’t open till 10am, and I didn’t arrive till well after 11am, I knew I wouldn’t see the creatures at their most active, if even catch a glimpse of some of them at all. On the plus side, though, the low winter light dappling through the trees was the perfect kind of illumination to bring out the nuances of the colours of the creatures’ pelts and plumage.
Opening hours change seasonally but are more inline with likely tourist visits than the animals’ daily routines so it’s not really possible to visit early enough or late enough in the day to see them at their most active. Though, as an attraction geared towards families and kids, is best to avoid weekends and school holidays if you want some peace and quiet to watch and contemplate your compositions.
What kit do I need?
In order to get a good animal portrait without too much background, the longer the lens the better. I exclusively used my Fuji X-T4 with the 80–300mm lens, mostly at the 300mm length. But given that the enclosures are quite small, you can still get decent enough photos with wider lenses but you might end up needing to do some cropping afterwards to eliminate any tell-tale wire and less leafy backgrounds out of the picture.
How do I get there?
Wildwood is five miles north of Canterbury (reachable in 56minutes on the high speed train from London St. Pancras) and it’s a 20-minute bus ride from the central bus station on routes 6, 7, 9 and 21A. On bike from Canterbury it’s a 30-minute ride along mostly quiet undulating country lanes. Those arriving by car, there’s a sizeable car park and it’s 20 minutes via the A299 from the end of the M2.
Where can I eat afterwards?
If after all that photography you’ve worked up at appetite, there’s a small café on site, the next nearest option is Canterbury Garden Centre at Herne Common over the road and its café serves warming soups and hearty buns. For basic supplies there’s a Co-op a few miles south in the village of Sturry and for something more filling, The Grove Ferry Inn pub on the banks of the river Stour offers pizzas and a full pub menu.
*Wallabies aren’t actually an extinct British species and they aren’t native to these shores but they have made little pockets of Britain their home.