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.