Two weeks for the price of one

Sorry for the lack of blog post last week, I blame lack of sleep, holiday plan chaos and generally just being busy. I’m going to attempt to cover the highlights of both weeks in this single post.

Last Sunday I was on the farmyard section. The first part of the morning was spent on cleaning out the chickens, chipmunks and rabbits:

While the rest of it was spent helping out over at The Studio, where we cleaned out the animals as well as mopping the floor and cleaning the windows, quarantine and finally we finished by cleaning out the skunks.

This is a picture of the inside of The Studio, it’s a VIP area of the zoo, closed to the general public but it’s quite nice in that it has pictures of the celebrities who have visited the park up on the wall.

The skunks were probably the main highlight of the day, although I have never had any issues with them before, the white skunk decided that he obviously didn’t like me and tried spraying me. Because of this, I quickly retreated and got to cuddle the other skunk, while one of the keepers quickly finished off the enclosure.

My afternoon was spent mostly with the rabbits. I had been asked to arrange the wooden logs and stones in the rabbit enclosures so that they looked nice and so that had things to hop onto and to get a few more bits and pieces for then. Below is a picture of one of the rabbits investigating one of the new pieces of wood I got from the woodland (this particular rabbit also got a brand new stone which she hopped on straight away - the rest, didn't seem particularly interested).

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Today, I was on Paddocks. The day started like any other paddocks day. The morning is always very hectic getting all the enclosures clean. After break, myself and one of the other volunteers went to clean out the wallabies, much to my delight, as it doesn’t take much to get me thinking about my impending trip to Australia! (Do you think this excitement will wear off, or am I going to be like this right from now until September?)

We then went up to the Woodland Walk to clear away some of the leaves inside the deer enclosure. I wish I had taken a ‘before’ picture, but this was ‘after’. With help from the keepers, we got quite a lot of it cleared away and it was looking very different by the time we left it to go to lunch.

The day just flew by! In the afternoon, we cleaned out Dippy’s room (Dippy is a wallaby who has been hand raised and can’t be put in with the others, therefore he has his own room next to the vet room), cleaned the outdoor area of the emus and fed the tapirs.

You may remember way back when I posted a picture of Thiago, the baby tapir. Well he is a bit bigger now and has lost his stripes. Here is a picture of him (front) and his mother having their evening feed.

This week’s facts, in order to be topical, are on our Australian residents at the zoo, the wallabies. I would do koala facts but perhaps I ought to wait until just before I actually go on my volunteer trip for those. ;-)

Facts of the Week

Wallabies

·         There are about 30 different wallaby species which are subgrouped by the habitat they live in: shrub wallabies, rock wallabies etc.

·         Although usually fairly small, they can measure up to 6ft from head to tail.

·         They have strong powerful back legs to help them move around; while there arms are used primarily for feeding and sometimes to help balance.

·         Their tails can measure the same length as their body and is used for balance.

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...