On the search for Dartmoor ponies
Dartmoor Ponies- Princetown
One of my favourite wildlife sights on Dartmoor is to see the Dartmoor ponies up on the moors, especially as the summer months approach and a large proportion of the ponies come into foal, their little bounding legs leaping around as the mares steadily graze is an amazing and very excitable sight. Which is why this morning I decided to head up towards Princetown and photograph some of the new arrivals in their natural habitat! Today’s articles focuses on my mini adventure this morning and a few tips and tricks so you can also enjoy the Dartmoor ponies safely and responsibly.
My Trip:
This morning I managed to see every different type of weather in the course of about 2 hours, it went from sunshine to rain to wind before settling on cloud; this of course is to be expected up on Dartmoor (which I believe to have its own weather pattern entirely) but it did make for some fun conditions for photographing ponies. I drove to just beyond the village of Princetown where I was able to spend an hour photographing a herd of ponies with a couple of foals before I got completely soaked in a blast of rain. However, it was on my way home at the edge of Princetown that I managed to stumble (or really drive) across the best Dartmoor pony photography opportunity I think I have ever come across. There was ponies, there was foals, there was a cute bridge with a river and ancient stones- it was peak Dartmoor pony photography… if I do say so. It was also at that moment stood on the bridge photographing a foal and its mother that I managed to snap the frame of my glasses with my camera… I’m not entirely sure how this happened; however, I think it was well worth it for the photos I managed to get!
Locating the ponies:
Finding Dartmoor ponies has got to be in the top ten of easiest wildlife species to locate in Devon. They are all over the moor and often just driving across the park will give you an opportunity to see them and the good news is there are plenty of stopping/parking points along with the official carparks all over the moor for you to stop in. For me, if I want to see Dartmoor Ponies, I head towards Princetown, located on the high moorland and in the centre of Dartmoor, it is a large village and home to the Dartmoor visitor centre which has loads of information and recommendations for different walks and other activities. It is almost guaranteed that you will see a Dartmoor pony along one of the routes into or out of Princetown- so far there hasn’t been an occasion when I haven’t seen a herd of ponies along one of these routes. However, let me stress that it is not necessary to go to Princetown to see the ponies they are literally all over the moor and I have seen herds of them when visiting a number of different locations.
Safety and Responsibility:
In my opinion safety and the welfare of wildlife will ALWAYS come before anything else and the ponies are no exception. Although they may look friendly, they are still wild animals and must be treated with respect accordingly. One aspect of safety that is particularly important especially if visiting during the summer months is driving and sticking to the speed limit (which at most is 40mph when in an area with free roaming animals) because the foals are particularly unpredictable with their movements and love to dash around -including across the roads- at unexpected moments; it is better to be safe then sorry. Furthermore, there is the reoccurring issue of feeding and attempting to pet the ponies, this in itself is stupid (a pony will kick, and it will hurt) but it also compromises the pony’s safety as they spend more time approaching people and carparks in search of food, which is a risk to them as well as people just looking to enjoy the moorland. Finally, distance is key, you should never get to close to the ponies because as stated already they are wild animals and unpredictable, they may of course approach you in which case the best action is to move backwards away from them. This is particularly important during the breeding season as you do not want an angry mother pony chasing you.
Photographing the Ponies:
For me there is two aspects to photographing the ponies there is photographing individuals and groups as a whole and then there is capturing their behaviours and personalities; neither aspect is better or worse then the other and I think it is possible to get a photo with the best of both in the one shot.
To photograph individuals, I recommend getting lower to the ground particularly if the pony has its head down this can help you capture a more interesting point of view, then from standing point. Furthermore, you could wait and watch the pony for a moment to see if it does something more interesting then just standing, for example grooming, grazing, moving are all behaviours that could make your photograph more exciting. If photographing a herd of ponies, think about what you want to get from the photo, is it to pick out one individual, is it to accommodate an interesting landscape or are the ponies in an amusing position. Thinking about these factors can really help to improve your photograph and give it a ‘story’ as well. For photographing mothers with their foals I recommend trying to capture their behaviour towards each other- one of my favourite photos is a foal drinking its mothers milk because it shows of the behaviour as well as natural bond of the pair. Although saying this I also love a photo I captured of the foal standing above the mother on the moor as she drinks from a river- mainly because it manages to show the mother on her own but keep the feeling of the close bond between them – the foal is reluctant to stray too far away.
