Snow leopard.

Snow leopard in the Orsa Björnpark Zoo.

I’m so there! Snow leopards are my favourite felines and I really, really wanted to see one. The last time I saw a snow leopard was ages ago back when I lived in England and it was love at first sight.So on this visit, I hoped I could at least see a snow leopard and maybe with some luck, get some pictures as well.

Since we’ve already had good opportunities to see wolves and lynx and other Nordic animals at Järvzoo, we walked right past the ”domestic” enclosures to get to the tigers and leopards. I found the tigers a bit difficult at first, just couldn’t get a good angle, until this one tiger was kind enough to sit down on top of the hill with some forest far back in the distance. It’s probably my favourite picture from this trip, even if it required some editing because there was small tree sticking up from behind the tiger and I needed to get rid of it.

So what about the snow leopard then? It was starting to look like I wouldn’t get any pictures of it. It has a hideaway in the middle of the enclosure and it wasn’t in any hurry to come out. The closing time was approaching and half of our group had already headed back to the exit, but we still had a few minutes until closing time so we made a last effort at both the persian leopards and the snow leopard, neither of which I had any pictures of so far (I’m not counting the snow-leopard-in-the-dark-hideaway frame).

And so our persistence was rewarded – the snow leopard made an appearance!  I could hardly believe my eyes. Then of course I found out that my 300mm lens was too long to fit the snow leopard and its long tail in one frame, so I had to try stitching. I thought I had it, but then at home when I attempted the stitch, it didn’t work at all – it turned out that the leopard had moved right at the moment I reframed for the second picture so nothing was matching in the pictures! But this cat is sure worth the effort, so I took those two pictures and at first I matched the backgrounds. Then I just simply extracted half the animal and re-fitted it in the background and quite amazingly, it actually works. It’s still not a good picture by any means, but it wouldn’t be a good picture even if the stitch had worked straight-out, that background is nothing to cheer at. But honestly, it’s a snow leopard. I’m happy!