At the Zoo

As you may recall my birthday present from the family was to be a keeper for the day at Colchester Zoo.  That day was Friday.  As Colchester is quite a distance from home then part two of the birthday surprise was a couple of nights at the nearby Five Lakes Golf, Country Club and Spa.  Therefore we headed to Maldon after morning rush hour on Thursday to take full advantage of the facilities.  This was also Éowyn’s first mini-break away.  She has stopped at Nanny Fran’s but not since her new awareness has developed and never in a hotel without all of her familiar things.

So after unpacking and settling in we headed to the spa facilities to take Éowyn swimming for the first time.  She has grown to like the bath especially since she has discovered splashing but we were unsure how she would take to a swimming pool.  This was probably the best introduction since the swimming pool was all but empty so there were no waves from the other people and more importantly there was little noise.  Swimming pools can be extremely noisy places especially when they are busy, and we were conscious that this could be a problem when we first took her swimming and we hoped that this would not put her off.  Another benefit was that we could take our camera in to capture her first swim, something that public swimming pools will certainly not let you do.  As you can see from the pictures below she thoroughly enjoyed it.

She did not enjoy sleeping in a strange cot in a strange room however and awoke in the middle of the night screaming.  It took us a while to calm her down, hopefully we didn’t disturb any of the other guests.

Friday was ‘Zoo-Keeper for the day‘ day!  We arrived early at Colchester Zoo in the middle of an icy downpour.  The day had started brightly but soon deteriorated into a real winter shower.  This meant that the zoo was quieter than usual as a day at the zoo is usually a fair-weather day out.

As you can see from the Colchester Zoo website there are three different schemes for the ‘Keeper for the day‘ experience; Lucinda had booked scheme B – the Carnivores, she knows me so well.  There were two of us on the scheme, myself and a lady called Jane.  We were to report at the Customer Services desk at 11:00am sharp ready for our first task with zoo-keeper Carrie.

We headed straight to the meerkats where we were to feed them live mealworms.  We were warned not to pet them (as with most animals at the zoo, they are not pets) as they will bite and have needle sharp teeth, as well as long claws on their forefeet.  Meerkats have a varied diet but the mealworms encourages them to forage, since the mealworms when scattered on the ground attempt to burrow into the soil (and who can blame them).  However, meerkats have an acute sense of smell and can smell invertebrates up to a metre below the surface.  What did surprise me, what that they were smaller than I expected, only about the size of my foot.  They were very inquisitive but when they realised that we were out of mealworms they headed back to the warmth of their ‘caves’.

Another tub of mealworms (poor mealworms) in hand we headed to the squirrel monkey cage.  Very cute but highly mischievous we were not allowed in the enclosure with them but fed them through the bars of their cage.

The next stop was to an animal that most people have never heard of.  The Binturong is a relation of the civet that lives in the forest of  Asia.  It is also known as the bearcat although it is neither.  It is has a thick long prehensile tail with which it can support its own body weight and big strong claws that it uses for climbing trees.  As we walked into the cage it came up to greet us, somewhat like a dog and you had to resist the urge to bend down to stroke him.  It is amazing how friendly an animal can get when you have a big bowl of its favourite food, it this case fruit, animals pellets and sprats.  He definitely had his favourite food: bananas, followed closely by grapes and turned his nose up against anything else until they had all gone.  A very cute animal that I recommend that you all go and visit when you next visit a zoo.

We then headed from the small mammals to the carnivores and from Carrie to Vickie.  The first carnivore on the list was the Fossa.  A very agile relative of the civet that is found only on the island of Madagascar, it is especially adept at hunting lemurs.  As with the next few animals on the list we were unable to enter the enclosure for our own safety but the presence of the keeper (with food) brought her to the front of the cage so that we got a good view of her.

Again, the next beast on the list was too dangerous for us to enter their enclosure.  The Amur Leopard Dende, is one of the 35 or so Amur Leopards in the world.  Probably the rarest big cat in the world, their numbers are threatened due to poaching (both of the cats themselves for Chinese medicine and their skins, protection of livestock in the leopard’s territory and of their prey), deforestation, and genetic inbreeding due to such low population numbers.  Vickie however has built a relationship with the leopard such that they are training him to present himself for medical examinations, so that they can listen to his heart (very difficult because he gets so excited when his is interacting with Vickie that his purring deafens the vet) and take blood samples, all without resorting to anethatising him.  Dende is so happy to see Vickie that when she approached his enclosure he ran to greet her at the glass, pawing it as a large and over-affectionate moggy.  It was great to be so close to such a beautiful cat.

Next on the list was to clean the lions’ bedding.  Ensuring that both lions were in the open the shutter was released so that we could safely enter their indoor enclosure.  We changed their straw bedding and washed down the area so that their bedroom was fit for a king.

Our final stop before lunch was to feed the margays.  Small spotted cats from South America they spend most of their time in trees and so to provide enrichment we hung portions of rabbit from trees in their enclosure hidden in toilet rolls, so that they had to work to get their food and sprayed perfume in the branches of the trees.  We entered their enclosures while they were there but they were far too wary to approach us.  As soon as we left though the male was straight after the food, while the female found an irresistable urge to rub herself against the perfume.  Apparently they like the perfume and rub their own scent into it.

An hour for lunch and we were picked up by Sarah the keeper of the African savanna mammals.  The first task was to feed the Red River Hogs, so called because they are red, live by rivers and are hogs.  Although omnivores,  we fed them their fruit and vegetable course.  They displayed a preference for apples, and would not touch the others until they were sure that all the apples had been thrown.  Due to their unpredictable nature we were not allowed to enter their enclosure but we could lean over the fence and pet them, always bearing in mind that their jaws are strong enough to crush coconuts and they are quick enough to catch rabbits.

We then walked round to the main enclosure and Sarah told us about their giraffes, rhinos, kudus, zebras and ostriches.  Again their unpredictable nature means that we were unable to enter the enclosure.  However we were taken to their bedding quarters where we made a bed for the kudus, then we were handed a bunch of leaves and taken to feed the giraffes.  It is amazing how big a giraffe is.  I think we all accept that giraffes are the tallest animals in the world, but it is not until you are standing next to one that you realise just how big they are.  See the photos below.

The last but not least encounter for the day was with the aardvark.  Famous for being the first noun in the English language, the aardvark (Earth Pig in Afrikaans) is a medium sized burrowing mammal.  Colchester Zoo has the enviable honour of being the only zoo in the UK that has successfully bred aardvarks and their fourth baby aardvark, Draco, was born in January.  Aardvarks are relatively peaceful and so we were allowed to enter their enclosure and were encouraged to stroke them.  The adults seemed nonplussed as nocturnal animals they barely roused from their slumber.  Draco though, as any child was fascinated by the visitors and came over for a sniff and stroke.  Sarah even demonstrated how ticklish he is.  As she tickled his sides he rolled on his back for you to stroke his belly.  What a fantastic way to end a fabulous day.

So if you have ever entertained the idea of being a zoo keeper I thoroughly recommend the Colchester experience, it is without doubt one of the best presents that I have ever had and would jump at the chance to do it again.

Please enjoy the photos below and more on the flickr pages too.

Peace and love

Baggie!

First Mother's Day

It has been a week of events.  It was my birthday, my first as a father, and then of course it was Mother’s Day, Lucinda’s first as a mom.  Obviously Éowyn was oblivious to all but nevertheless it is not diminished by that to us.  I was at work on both days, but my birthday was made special by a visit from Lucinda and Éowyn and a trip for lunch.  My birthday present from the family is rather special and no doubt will warrant a page to itself with plenty of photos for it is to fulfil a bit of a childhood ambition and to be a zoo-keeper for the day.  I will be helping to look after the big cats, including a white tiger, before mucking out the meerkats and putting the hippos and giraffes to bed.  It is at Colchester Zoo and so we are going to spend a couple of nights at a hotel and spa nearby so that travel in the morning is not an issue and I can take a well-deserved break afterwards.

Éowyn’s first Mother’s day present to Lucinda was to book her a luxury manicure and pedicure; a chance for Lucinda to have some relaxation and time for herself, while Éowyn and daddy have some father and daughter time.  Her second present was even better: a full night’s sleep.  For the first time in weeks she slept through the night and although that should be a cause of celebration it did not translate into a full night’s sleep for Lucinda, as she was half listening for Éowyn all night.

To celebrate both my birthday and mother’s day Lucinda and I went for a Monday morning lunch in Richmond while Nanny and Granddad looked after Éowyn.  We headed for Gaucho Grill, one of my personal favourites.  The steaks are to die for but all the food is fantastic, everything is bursting with flavour, and it just goes to prove that you get what you pay for.  It is pricy but good food is worth paying for.

Lucinda’s cousin, Alex, his wife Sally, and daughter Isabel have arrived safely from Australia.  I am not sure quite what relation that makes Isabel to Éowyn, second cousin I think, but I always get these things wrong.  Hopefully we should be able to spend some time with the guys before they head back home.

As I mentioned earlier, Sunday night Éowyn slept through the night.  This was due to a double dream feed attack from us.  At 2130 I fed Éowyn a small bottle of milk and at 2300 Lucinda fed her another small bottle.  This seemed to do the trick and we were patting ourselves on the backs thinking that we had finally sussed it.  Unfortunately, she had dragged us into another false sense of security as this trick did not work two nights running.

It did give us some information though.  All the books seems to point to the same conclusion: Éowyn was waking up because she was hungry and breast milk just wasn’t satisfying enough for her to last through the night.  So we have turned to ‘hungry baby milk’ for the dream feed.  First night she took the bottle, she slept though to 0630!  Success!  Second night, she refused her dream feed and so woke up at 0130.  Took the hungry baby milk and slept through to 0730!  This is far too premature to even talk about success but if only we can get her to take the dream feed before we go to bed we should be able to get a lie in until at least 0630.  If you had told me six months ago that I would class 0630 as a lie in, I would have mocked you within an inch of your life; now I am just grateful!

Anyhow, enough of my ramblings please enjoy the latest photos.

Love and peace

Baggie!