Of emus and camels

Today had one of my rare visits to the paddocks section of the zoo. Some volunteers seem to be put on this a lot, Steven will do 3 or 4 weeks running, I however, hardly ever seem to go on it. In fact, I've probably only done it half a dozen times.

I'm not sure whether I like this section or not, I actually enjoyed it far more today than on previous occasions. I think it might simply because it is very hard, physical work and therefore I always end up exhausted and ready for my breaks.

The morning was spent doing the usual cleaning out of the enclosures with head keeper James and Carrie. We were later joined by Meggie who is one of the volunteers doing their Duke Of Edinburgh award (This is an award done through schools, for which they have to do so many hours volunteer work - at the zoo they tend to work 8 'til 1).

After our break Meggie and I went to clean out the emu pool. This was a challenge, especially as we established that Meggie is frightened of emus and they kept wandering round wondering what we were getting up to. This is not the best photo in the world - It's very blurry but this is two of the emus drinking the water we'd removed out of the pool.

 In the afternoon i got to feed the wallabies - I took a picture of them eating but unfortunately it too was blurry so here is a picture I took back in the summer.

 I also got to go on the woodland walk with Carrie today and got to listen to a few facts about the animals there. I was interested to hear about tawny owls. Apparently, they are the most common owl in Britain and are the only species to make the "Ter wit to wo" noise which we all (in the UK at least) associate with owls. However, it is actually part of their mating call and the females go "Ter wit" and the males answer with "to wo".

As well as owls, there are also deer and some red foxes on the woodland walk. There are two types of deer, red deer, found here in the UK and hog deer (pictures here), found in Southeast Asia. The red foxes at the zoo (one of which is also pictured) have all be rescued. Two of the Basil and Jacob were found at the side of the road at about 4 weeks old shortly after I'd arrived at the park and Rupert, who is about 4 years old was hit by a car and nursed back to health.

Overall it was a good day, I spent a lot of time playing with Houdini, the baby camel and tickled the meerkats whenever I went past their enclosure - They run up to me now, I'm not sure if it's because they recognise me or if they run up to anyone wearing a green top.

I really have a back ache now though...