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.