I’ve made a few visits to the TIlgate Nature Centre over the last few years. Here are the best of my photos from those visited, handily compressed into a single compendium.

To see more, check out the post below ⬇️

#photography #nature #wildlife #birds #cats #zoo #sussex #tilgate #naturecentre

http://creativesplurges.com/2025/08/08/tilgate-nature-centre/

Tilgate Nature Centre

One of our more visited attractions near us is Tilgate Nature Centre. It’s an inexpensive day out and provides lots of interesting animals to look at, and space for a child to both stare at the animals and run around a lot.

This is another of those places where we’ve done many trips and I’ve taken a handful of photos at each one, so this is another compendium post of images from several visits scattered out over a few years (which is also why my usual kit list for this post contains so many items).

Our first visit was way back in May 2021. At that point our child was 5 months old, and Covid restrictions had eased after the winter lockdown, so this was one of our first family days out.

The first animals that greet you at the centre are some meerkats. Some of them take their role as greeters very seriously.

Let’s bring in some historical context right at the start. Being 2021, I hadn’t used my camera much for quite a while at that point, so was prone to some silly mistakes – such as taking the above picture in Manual mode, rather than Aperture Priority, resulting in some odd settings such as an aperture of f/9, when I’d normally want to take it wide open at f/4 (also I needed to edit the shot dramatically because the exposure was a bit wonky).

The errant Manual mode continued during an encounter with a tortoise that also called this pen home.

Those are some real amateur settings.

Luckily by the time we saw this bird I’d realised my error and switched over to Aperture Priority.

Now seems like a good time for my usual disclaimer on any of my posts containing animals: I am terrible at identifying species, and usually find it disingenuous to look it up and present it to you like it’s a piece of information I knew and wasn’t just parroting back at you from a search engine. Especially since these days it involves feeding the image into an AI and hoping it doesn’t hallucinate into telling you it’s a tiger.

Anyway, point is, I don’t know what this bird is.

It is a pretty bird, and I caught it just right in the light.

I did actually give this image to ChatGPT to ask what it was just out of curiosity, and it named it as a Laughing Kookaburra based on, amongst other things, its distinctive call. Not sure how it got that from a still photo.

We also saw these creepy, vulture-cum-Skeksis things having a meaty dinner of something without a head.

Our next trip – at least one at which I took any photos – was almost a year later, in April 2022. Once again we were greeted by the meerkats.

An alpaca was out and about too.

I also managed to get another decent shot of the animal that sounds like a kookaburra, even in photos.

We went back only a month later for another visit. Thanks to their pen by the entrance we were greeted by the meerkats again.

Although this time I was distracted by another bit of wildlife on the outside of the pen.

Also in the pen with the meerkats were a few of these things. I don’t know what they are, but they remind me of those examples of terrible Victorian taxidermy.

I’m not sure if the residents of the Nature Centre change periodically, or if we just did a good job of wandering to different areas. Point is I don’t know what this is, but it seemed to be keeping guard over a bucket of fish.

In one of the little buildings is a rodent hut. That gave me a chance to photograph this dormouse. Makes a change from one of my cats bringing one in and leaving it on the living room carpet.

Not quite as impressive as the staged shots of a dormouse I took at the British Wildlife Centre, but it was the best I had at that point.

Our next visit was in April 2023, because apparently visiting the nature reserve is a spring activity for us. This time, with a two-year-old in tow, I didn’t feel capable of bringing my full DSLR, so made use of my little Sony point-and-shoot.

Once again we saw the alpacas.

Turns out, not all of the animals are alive.

Once again the kookaburra – if indeed that is what it was, because I still haven’t heard any of these photos make any noise – caught my eye.

We also saw this guy, but I suspect he might have been an interloper who snuck in.

I’m conscious that this post is threatening to slip into a ‘I saw this, then I saw that’ narrative, but frankly it’s basically a small zoo, where we wander from one enclosure to another, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes with purpose, and sometimes because you’re chasing a small child that decided to run in that direction, so there isn’t a lot to segue from one creature to the next. Especially when I don’t even know that the creatures are called. Like this colourful bird thing.

In one pen a bunch of tortoises were crowding around a heatlamp for warmth.

This time, the meerkats didn’t greet as at the start, they angrily made sure we left. Well, either that or I just didn’t photograph them on my way in.

Our next visit – and the most recent one in this set – is from April 2024. I genuinely don’t know why we always seem to visit at the same time each year. I think it’s just an easy and inexpensive day out, and if you get there near when it opens it’s pretty quiet too, and must coincide with when the weather starts turning a bit more pleasant. By the same token I couldn’t tell you why we haven’t visited this year.

Anyway, back to the animals. Once again we managed to see some we hadn’t seen previously, with some lemurs running around having fun.

There was also an owl with brilliant orange eyes. Usually they’re hiding in their aviary out of sight when we visit, but not this time.

Unfortunately he soon moved – and I missed it.

We moved on to see this bird. Mostly I loved its still reflection in the water.

Eventually though we ended up back looking at the kookaburras. This time, one of them was on the floor.

There are a few in the cage, and two of them decided to share a worm with each other.

At the time of this visit, some new residents at the nature centre were some wildcats. Of course we had to make sure we saw those.

I’m not entirely sure what was so interesting to this wildcat, but he was fascinated by it.

As they had not long moved in, I presume they were still getting used to their new surroundings.

We made our way back through the centre, and found the beautiful owl from earlier had settled down somewhere a little more convenient, and in quite a magnificent pose.

One of the other animals we hadn’t seen before was an armadillo – although I supposed they’re easy to miss on account of them mostly looking like a rock.

Elsewhere, there was another kind of wild cat, which frankly I’m not sure of the name of. What’s a good cat name? Tiddles. There we go. He was hiding in the bushes near a fence, but luckily I spotted him.

I did spend some time on this particular trip shooting things that weren’t animals on this trip, which seems a good point to put them and the other random non-animal shots I’ve taken on my various visits to the Tilgate Nature Centre into one batch at the end. Think of it as a small, self-contained Random Gems collection to close us out with.

Some of the animal houses are nicely decorated with things reminiscent of Victorian explorers of old, like this assortment of shelves, books and luggage.

There was also this lovely globe. I didn’t open it up to see if it was full of drink – it certainly looks like it should be.

On the walk towards the nature centre, in the larger Tilgate Park, there are some lovely plants and flowers, such as this assortment of trees.

Or these roses.

Or this impressive tree.

Although one of my favourites of these non-animal images is the decorations on this (I believe faux) outhouse in one of the animal houses.

And the last of these images I want to share with you, the outside of this building, adorned with a load of shed antlers from the various deer and reindeer and other antler-possessing creatures.

As I said, we’ve not been back to Tilgate Nature Centre since last April. This isn’t a conscious decision, and I’m sure we’ll end up back there before too long.

As always, above is a highlight reel of images. You can see some more, all in chronological order, in the gallery below.

#birds #cats #nature #Photography #sussex #tilgate #wildlife #Zoo

It was sunny first thing this morning so I went out for a ride on my bicycle. I decided I needed to do some hills. I hate hills (being from the Canadian Prairies 😉) but Sussex is not the flattest part of the UK by any stretch of the imagination. I need to learn not to let hills put me off going for a ride.

I went through Tilgate Forest to a new estate being built just outside Crawley next to Pease Pottage. It was a lovely ride although shorter than usual. Good workout nonetheless and a great way to start a day. 🙂

#BikeTooter #UKCycling #Cycling #Crawley #WestSussex #Sussex #Tilgate #TilgatePark #PeasePottage #PrairieBoy

Lovely day for a morning pre-work ride around Tilgate Forest and environs south of Crawley. Some wildlife encountered!

#BikeTooter #UKCycling #Crawley #Tilgate #WestSussex #wildlife

Happy Easter! Slightly drizzly day here today but not too cold. Went cycling through the forest.

#Photography #Photograph #BikeTooter #Cycling #UKCycling #Tilgate #TilgateForest #Woodgate #PeasePottage #Crawley #WestSussex #Sussex #MTB #SilentSunday