Hattie

Another place we visit everytime we are at my Dad's is Chester Zoo. I don't think it's terribly controversial to say it has a richer variety of exhibits than Edinburgh Zoo, which we can't really justify visiting every year. Today the place was incredibly busy. Even though we managed to arrive early, thanks to not getting lost on the motorways for once, there were still sizeable queues for many of the exhibits when we got in. I'm a pretty lazy wildlife photographer: I know next to nothing about animal habits and don't really have the time or freedom from my own two animals/kids to wait for a stand-out image. So most of today's gazillion photographs were cliched tourist shots of creatures in various states of boredom.

This subject was working in the zoo, and I was struck by how the evening light lit up her beautiful red hair. She was actually quite near the pink flamingos area, but thankfully good taste prevailed and I resisted forcing them into the background as a visual echo.