A few weeks off

So I confess I have been slacking a little on my blog (yet again!).

I haven't actually been to the zoo for the past couple of weeks. Last week, I was suffering from the mother of all hangovers after the hockey girls christmas do and was in no state to go anywhere. Yes... I felt incredibly guilty.

This Sunday I didn't go because of the snow we currently have in the area. The main problem being that the zoo is down a country road in the middle of some woods, and I decided after much agonising that I wouldn't attempt to get there.

To provide a little bit of news however, Paradise Park was in the local newspaper this week. Their snow leopard cub, Hara, is moving to pastures new as part of a breeding programme:

Rare Snow Leopard to leave Broxbourne's Paradise Wildlife Park

I also thought I'd post a copy of the map of the zoo so you can see what is there. If there's anythign you'd particularly like me to talk about, or show you some pictures of, please let me know and I'll see what I can do!

I won't be at the zoo over Christmas, so I'll wish you all the best and return with more zoo news in the New Year! :-)

Winter arrives but keeping warm with meerkats

Sorry for the lack of posting again.

I had a week off from the zoo last week, but this week I was back, braving the freezing cold (literately) working on my favourite, the small mammal section of the zoo.

As I said, it was reallty very cold, and cleaning out the enclosures sweeping up frozen food and poo wasn't particularly easy, and attempting to get the frost off the windows (so the public could see in) was pointless, it simply froze back up again. Pools and water troughs were frozen as well... As well as most of the water taps around the zoo...
Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera out of my bag first thing so the best of the picture moments had gone and the ones I did take (like the ice floating in the wolves pool, didn't really come out)
Despite this, Connor (the head section keeper) and I did a good job at getting the morning rounds done quite quickly. In the first section, I cleaned out the meerkat enclosure and the corsac foxes, while Connor did the coatis and racoons. We both took care of the second meerkat enclosure and then, over the otherside of the zoo, I got to clean out my favourites, the red pandas and Connor did the otters. We finished just after 10am.
At 10:45, Connor had a 'Meet the Red Pandas' experience so I went along to watch the red pandas being feed - Incredibly jealous that I didn't get to do it, but it's great to watch them eat; they're so gentle and wrap their paws around the bamboo to eat the leaves.

 

I spent the rest of the morning preparing feeds and after lunch I helped clear some rubble from round the back of the coati & racoon enclosures.
There's an old brick building tucked behind there that has recently been opened up, presumably for a storage area. It actually used to be the lion and puma houses back in the old days. Of course they have much bigger and much more open enclosures now. Here's a couple of pictures I took of the area, but I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see the size of the structure.

My real treat however, came in the afternoon when Connor suggested we go and sit with the meerkats for a while. We've always got 'Meet the Meerkat' experiences going on at the zoo (we had 3 on Sunday) and I've never got to sit in with them before. It was fantastic, having meerkats climb all over me and cuddle up against me, two of them, Captain and Twig were particularly friendly and laid back against me and let me tickle their tummies. I was really quite sad when we had to go.

I think this was Twig...

So, this is the end of my post. I hope I am forgiven for the delay in posting again. I do try and do it each week but don't always have the time... and the next Sunday comes by really fast.
We have snow now... I'm hoping that doesn't stop me going this weekend!

I'll leave you with another of my zoo favourites who didn't seem to appreciate the weather all that much.

Bird Attack!

This week (and last week) I was working on the bird section of the zoo. I always like working with the birds; the work is less manual than in other parts of the zoo but its always good fun.

For the first task of the morning, Claire and I headed over to the Toucan House to clean out and feed the birds there. We were hoping to get it done pretty quickly and so she started with the bats, which arrived at the zoo a few weeks ago, which I started at the other side with the sun conures.

I’ve always liked the sun conures; theirs was the first aviary I cleaned out, back on my first day volunteering back in March (or was it February? – I lose track), but I was a little bit nervous. Last time I had gone in the cage one of the birds had become quite aggressive towards me and I got bitten on the arm.

This time, I gave them their food first (in the hope to distract them) before setting to work cleaning the enclosure. I was about done and just sweeping up the mess they had made with their new food when one of them landed on me. I was hoping he’d be content with simply biting my hair band but unfortunately Carlos decided to bite my ear and then my finger (as I raised my hands to protect my ear).

Although they weren’t serious injuries, they really hurt and my finger started to bleed which meant we had to put on a plaster and go and fill out the accident forms before we could get back to work

I made Claire do back in the conures’ cage to get my cleaning stuff out of it.

There’s a picture of the culprits.

Things fortunately became less dramatic after that. I cleaned out one of the toucan cages, who was definitely one bird I didn’t have to worry about attacking me. This is Tammy and he is a real sweetheart and sometimes tries to feed you. Today however, he was simply interested in trying to eat food out of the conures’ old food tray.

Later on I did my usual tasks of cleaning out the small aviaries and the lovebirds. I like doing this a Lolly, on of the lorikeets is particularly friendly, the trouble was, when she landed on my shoulder and refused to get off I was paranoid that I’d get bitten again!

I also had to go and clean out the parrot cages, this is always interesting as you have to try and find boxes and empty toilet rolls of them to play with and put them imaginatively in the cages, and then prepare their feeds.

This is Bobby one of the parrots.

The final task of the day was to get the food out the freezer for the birds of prey to have the next morning. Here’s a picture of Monday’s breakfast defrosting… Yum!

I think that’s enough for the day. I have rambled long enough. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures next week!

Nancy and the farmyard

This week and last week I was working on the farmyard section of the zoo. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this section. I love the pigs, and enjoy cleaning out their enclosures and the small animal cages – the chinchilla, mice and rats etc; but I simply can not build up any enthusiasm for cleaning out the rabbits.

I think it would be fine if there were only 4 or 5 rabbit runs to clean out, but there are 13 of them and it’s one of those jobs which simply seem to take forever!

I don’t really have much in the way of farm news with which to entertain you. Here is a picture of one of the goats which I took on Sunday. He/She definitely seems to be the boss of them all!

One of my favourite animals at the zoo is Nancy the pig and I thought today I would spare a section of my blog just for her. Nancy shares an enclosure with her sister Harriet and I try and go to see them every week and take them some carrot (normally I pinch a bit from the feed pot if I have to prepare it, or give them some of the food which has fallen the wrong side of the enclosure. Because of this they both tend to come straight over to me, if not, Nancy always comes when I call her.

This week I thought I’d try and take a nicer photo of her and she decided that because I was ignoring and not feeding her or giving her a scratch behind the ears, that she’d put her feet up on the wall in an attempt to get to me. This is the photo I finally got of her up on the wall. She was less than impressed with the flash though but I quickly made it up to her with anothe rpiece of carrot!

Despite being a bit hectic, I enjoyed my day and also spent time helping to prepare some of the meerkat feeds. Unfortunately there seems to be a real lack of volunteers at the moment which means that some weeks there is no one working on some sections, which is a great shame. It also means less variation for me because the paddocks and farmyard sections are the ones which require the help the most.

For my final picture this week, I thought I would introduce you to another relatively new member of the zoo. This is Houdini, a baby Bactrian camel. I always look forward to saying hello to her every morning!

Cats at Paradise

I know that I have been particularly poor with my blog recently - in fact I haven't posted anything since I got back from Kenya. This has been for a number of reasons but to be honest it's just been difficult getting back into the habit of posting on a Sunday night after I've been at the zoo.

Today I thought that I would focus on the group of animals which I have yet to blog about at Paradise Park; and that is the cats.

Paradise Wildlife Park have a very large collection of big cats and for a couple of weeks after I got back from Kenya I was delighted to be able to work with them. Unfortunately this didn't involve playing with them as I had the lion cubs South Africa, but I did get to clean out their enclosures and prepare their food.

One of the enclosures I got to clean out was the outside tiger enclosure, while they were being kept in the smaller outside enclosure. I was warned not to go too near the dividing fence and to make sure that the broom was kept away from it as well. This made me quite nervous when sweeping the path next to the fence, especially while Narnia, the white tiger was pacing up and down and snarling at me as if I was going to be her next meal! Rocky the big male seemed less concerned and just waited patiently until I had finished hiding their dinner around the place.

I have to admit that I love all the cats at the park and it’s very difficult to just pick out a few favourites. The jaguars are beautiful and graceful; unfortunately I’ve yet to get any nice photos of them. One of my other favourites is the snow leopards. Below is a picture of one of them, right against the gate as we were trying to coax him into the inside enclosure.

Here is the big male tawny lion (they also have white lions in a separate enclosure) having a sleep in the sun.

Finally, I want to introduce you to the newest member of the cat family. This is Yazhi, a 14 week old puma cub who arrived at the park a coupe of weeks ago. She is so beautiful and at the moment is only slightly bigger than a domestic cat. I of course wanted to go in and play with her but there are straight rules of who is allowed in her enclosure. I did get Andrew who was one of the cat keepers on Sunday to take a couple of photos of her while he was with her in the enclosure.

I hope that you have enjoyed my blog post for today. Sorry again for the lack of posts recently. I have been taking pictures still so hopefully I’ll have some more for you next week.

Friends new and old

Hi Everyone, sorry my post is a little late this week; I've been a bit busy these past few days.

I once again had a great day at the zoo on Sunday. I was working on the farmyard section once again, but for the first time I actually felt quite comfortable with what I was doing when Josh did his usual disappearing act and left the rest of us to it.

The day started as normal, with us cleaning out the indoor enclosures. I'm getting a bit quicker at doing this now and managed to do two of them by yself... Basically the chore is this...

• Use a fork to pile up the still clean straw while removing the soiled/damp stuff.
• Sweep up any bits that are left.
• Hose down the floor (though this time Josh had us using buckets of water in an attempt to protect his newly painted floor).
• Remove any excess water and remaining dirt using a long handled squeege

Once done, I drew the short straw of taking the dirty straw over to the muck heap.

The time between break and lunch was spent cleaning out the rabbits with Maya one of the other volunteers. Though to be honest, she cleaned out the hutches while I spent my time chasing rabbits... Josh had asked me to check the rabbits over for any obvious cuts or lumps etc and only two of them actually wanted to stay still for me... I finally managed to pin down all but one and gave them a stroke all over.

The afternoon was spent doing the usual sweeping tasks and then we set about disinfecting the outdoor goat (and pig) enclosure which was a lot of hard work!

To finish the post this week I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to some new and old faces. Firstly, I wonder if you remember the sweet, little lamb that arrived at just one week old on my first week at the zoo (nearly 3 months ago). Well, he’s not so small any more...

Secondly, I wanted to introduce you to Thiago. Thiago is a Brazilian tapir who was born at Paradise Park on 4^th April 2010. This picture is quite old now but I think he’s probably about a month old here:

The second animal I wanted to introduce you to is one of the alpaca. I love alpaca, they have such sweet faces. They have five or six at the park and they’re one of the only animals who seem to enjoy being out in the rain. For some reason they all seem to have alcohol related names like Brandy and Whisky...

 Finally I end on a sad note, the park lost Crystal the beautiful hare that I posted a picture of a few weeks ago after a brief illness and so I just wanted to end this week’s blog entry by reposting that picture of her:

 This is going to be my last post for a little while I'm afraid as I'm not going to be at the zoo... This Sunday I am supposed to be going to the Taste of London festival and the following weekend is Glastonbury. After that, I'm off on holiday to Kenya for my Earthwatch expedition. I can't wait!!

A lovely day

I had a wonderful day at the zoo today which more than made up for my disappointment last week. I also got some great photos.

I was working on the small mammal section today with Connor. Normally there would be two keepers on a section and one or two volunteers but for some reason the zoo was short staffed and it was just the two of us. There was a lot to get through in the morning and I started off the day taking care of the meerkat enclosure while Connor did the coatis and the corsac foxes.

The meerkats are so cute. They were fascinated when I was cleaning the windows, watching backwards and forwards when I cleaned the outside of the enclosure, and climbing on my knees while I cleaned the windows on the inside of the enclosure.

After the meerkats, we quickly cleaned the racoon enclosure (still no pictures I'm afraid... I really want to take a picture without the fencing in the way) and then the second meerkat enclosure.

There was still more to do before the morning break and I took care of cleaning the red panda enclosure while Connor dealt with the otters.

I love a lot of the animals at Paradise Park but the red pandas have to be one of my favourites; they just look so sweet and when they take food off you they take it so gently. My final task of the morning was Flower the zorilla's (striped polecat) enclosure which took me far longer than it should do because I was worried about her trying to escape. I need not have worried... She's actually as good as gold.

The time between morning break and lunch was spent doing a bit of clearing up and then preparing the next lot of food for all the animals.

After lunch I got to feed the coatis. This was great fun. I had to scatter the food around the enclosure while Connor gave a talk and answered questions. There are three coatis and they followed me around and one of them ate out of the bowl I was holding (I couldn't quite fet her to feed from my hand but I think that's because she was really after the mealworms rather than whatever fruit or vegtable I was trying to feed her.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was taken up with the otters. I had to clean the wondows around the enclosure and then do some cleaning inside.

Here are a couple of pictures I took while they were getting their afternoon feed and Connor was trying to get them to come outside:

So, all in all a good day filled with lots of enjoyable things. I really enjoy working with the small mammals. Lets look forward to an equally enjoyable day next Sunday.

Primates

Apologies for the slightly late and shorter post this week.

Yesterday I started work on the primate section of the zoo. Unfortunately, the head keeper was called away to do something else which meant that due to my lack of experience on the section I didn't get to do anything very exciting.

I started off the morning working in the rainforest section of the zoo. This is a section with tamarins and other small monkeys, and also, one of my favourite animals... a two-toed sloth, called Mr Jingles. First task of the day was to clean all the windows. This fascinated the residents of the enclosures:

It was then off to the lemur enclosures to help clean them out. Now, I can honestly say this was probably the least pleasant experience of my zoo career so far. The smell was horrible. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any nice photos but here's one for the bars of the enclosure.

The rest of the day was spend sweeping and washing up dishes. Hopefully next time I work on the section I'll be able to get a bit more involved and get some nicer pictures (especially one of the sloth).

The last picture of the day, is not a primate. The afternoon was warm and sunny and I couldn't resist taking this picture of one of the cheetahs warming itself in the sun.

Small mammals

Today, I got my wish to work on a different section of the zoo so that I could show you some of the other animals when I was put on the small mammal section for the first time.

I started the day by visitng the coati enclosure to carry out a quick clean and to give them fresh food and water. Two of them were still in bed, but the other was more than happy to wander around and find out what was going on. Here are a couple of spots I managed to take:

After the coatis, Ricky and quickly cleaned out the corsac foxes and then it was over to the meerkats. There are actually two families of meerkats at the park in different enclosures and are a very popular attraction. There were about four different sets of people on the meet the meerkat experience today alone.

Now my Nova Scotia friends will remember my excitement of racoons. Today I got close to them, but unfortunately I wasn't able to go into the enclosure with them. Apparently the females are being aggressive at the moment so I had to make do with cleaning their indoor enclosure and look at them throught the cage bars... Next time.

I had a fantastically enjoyable morning which was topped off by getting the opportunity to hand feed one of the red pandas. They are really beautiful. Here's a picture of one of them which I took a few weeks ago:

The rest of the day was spent preparing the animals feeds for next time (cutting up large amounts of vegetables and other ingredients - no cat food for these meerkats), doing general cleaning and sweeping around the zoo (because of all the meet the meerkat experiences that Matt had to do we didn't get to do the thinks we'd hoped).

My last chore of the day was to help out the people working on the bird section by getting rid of some stinging nettles that had been growing down the side of one of the enclosures. It was a really tight gap which required you to stand sideways (and step over metal bars). However the real challenge came from the scarlet macaw occupying the adjacent cage who insisted on following me around the cage. This is a picture taken with no zoom at all which hopefully will give you some idea of just how close this parrot was! I was quite nervous of her.

A final piece of good news before I sign off for the day is that one of the penguin eggs hatched out on Tuesday. I was shown a photo and it is really cute. In three to four weeks it will hopefully come out of it's nest so that the public can see it; though I'm hoping to have that honour next week...

Pigs

I was working on the farmyard again this week and once again I was entertained by Nancy following me around the edge of the enclosure and making me feel really guilty when I ignored her or had to leave to go and do something else. When I went to put spme hay in her enclosure she snuffled against my legs and climbed up me. I'm used to it with dogs but I never thought I'd have a pig do it to me!

The pigs are easily my favourite animals on the farm section and I was actually quite surprised to find out how intelligent they are.

This is T playing with his ball and pushing it aound his enclosure. I believe he's just over a year old and Josh has trained him since birth (he is actually the son of Nancy). He takes part in the 'Animal olympics' show and is trained to do things like sit and jump over hurdles based on different hand signals. Apparently he knows exactly which keepers he can get away with showing off with and has once before run off and gone back to his enclosure.

In other farmyard news,  the baby rabbits are doing well and are a lot more active now, running about their enclosure and interacting with the people around (although they're still a bit nervous about being touched). The lamb is huge - I had meant to take a photo to show you but I forgot.

The other animal I wanted to share with you today is my favourite resident of 'Bunny Town'.

This is Crystal who is a hare. You can't see it very well here but she is a beautiful reddish brown colour and has these fantastically huge feet and big ears!

I like working on the farmyard, but I'm hoping for something different next week... Otherwise I might run out of things to write about!!

Looking after the penguins

Today I worked on the bird section of the zoo and spent most of the time with the Humboldt penguins.

My first penguin task of the day was to help Claire catch three of the penguins and put some cream on their feet. This is because their feet are becoming cracked. The cream has to be put on twice a day. Two of them we caught easily, one by tempting him with some fish, the other by cornering them in their enclosure. The third penguin refused to be caught and went swimming instead. This meant when he finally was caught we had to wait for him to dry before rubbing on the cream.

I then had to hose down the rocks while Claire hoovered the pool (with a wet vacuum cleaner).

After we were done, I left the penguins for a while and made up the feed pot; a mixture of carrot and cabbage that the public can buy in bags and feed to a number of animals around the park.

In the afternoon, I finished off my work with the penguins by getting to feed them which Liz gave a talk to the public. I say getting to feed them... Actually only one was hungry so I only really fed the one... But it was fun anyway! :) This is me feeding Vera below:

It was a great day and the penguins are lovely. I also went with Liz to check on the two penguin eggs they have incubating. They're quite hopeful at the moment and they hope they'll hatch 15-18 May so fingers crossed for the safe arrival of chicks soon!

Injuries and baby rabbits

It was a very wet day today and once again I was working on the farm yard section of the zoo.

The day started off much the same as the week before, cleaning out one of the enclosures, and then the chicken coops (which was new to me) and chinchilla cages.I was however brutally attacked by Rodney the rooster, who it transpired was hinting that it was time for breakfast! The culprit and my injury (a single peck to the knee) can be seen below:

After our morning break Deborah and I headed down to 'Bunny Town' to clean out the rabbit hutches; a task which isn't usually on my favourites list simply because it takes so long. Today was made much better however due to the baby rabbits who were finally visable.

These gorgeous bundles of fluff are 4 weeks old:

The afternoon was spent feeding the pigs and goats (I discovered that the pig without a name from last week is called Nancy) and doing some general sweeping around the farm section of the zoo.

One final picture to finish off. Please forgive the reflection of the glass but hopefully you'll be able to see it clearly (I hope to try and clean it up a bit). This is one of the lemar enclosures which is situated next to the farm where they currently have two babies. Here is one of them:

 That's it for today. Lets hope for sunshine next week!