Waking the Rhino’s

I’ve never seen the rhino’s out of this indoor paddock. Maybe the outside world is too noisy.

They were having a softly softly afternoon snooze.

Lets whistle and wake the lugubrious beasts up.

Big Boss Pertinax

Cheekily – by beating chest – i was pretending to be Alpha Male in front of Big Boss Guy Pertinax.

He started chucking things at me.

How dare you beat your chest in front of me! I’ll show ya!

Luckily, for me, he didn’t chuck a tree.

Swan Rescue

At the end of the day – a bit of excitement.

This swan had to be rescued from the swamp monkey enclosure. Mitrek didn’t seem to mind. He’s on his own now. The female – Laguna – died in the summer; of natural causes the keeper said. She’d looked pretty strange to me – with her back end all swollen and distended. What a sad little monkey she seemed.

Anyway. Back to today – and a bit of palaver.

But the swan didn’t resist or protest at all really. I was expecting a big flap of wildly beating wings, angry hissing and pecking – but he tamely allowed himself to be gathered up and returned to his rightful place.

Tigers and Toddlers

Along comes Bintang and his bro. He wants to play with these toddlers. Playfully paw them about the head, bite their little ears off.

Bless him. Bless them – the little mites.

I knew one of the mothers (hello Fleur) of the mites – so made this vid for her. It was necessary to tone down the excited shrieking going on, disguise it with music.

Lechwe Beatitude

A couple of young lechwe stags having a go with one another, just mucking about.

Zooming my camera in to longshots reveals a dark mark on the lense – so i have to be content with suggesting what’s happening from afar without actually being able to see that much.

Time for a new – better – camera.

But this vid still captures something of the beatific feel of these lechwes on their bit of hill.

Ram on

You have to get zoo animals interested. Well, you have to stimulate them abit to make them slightly more interesting than boring lets say.

Pretending to have food hidden in your hand is one way. I reached my fingers through the fence; the ram couldn’t help himself – he just had to jump up the wall to have a look, a sniff, to make sure.

His persistent intent made me smile.

A Lemur racket

So back to the zoo after 6 weeks away.

A zoo with its winter coat on.

I could hear these lemurs from a long way off, so went to see what was bothering them.

Turns out not alot was bothering them really. Maybe a big seagull knicking their raisins.

They don’t half make a din for such small cuties.

Like mini-monsters they are.

Moody Mawumba

Here’s one of that moody Mawumba.

I was just starting to wind him up.

Before long he’d had enough of my silly antics and was rushing the fence.

Meerkat Food Conference

Another pic from Newquay zoo visit

Meerkats are always good value; they’ve got cute cred in spades.

Lechwe Doe

This picture was taken on the visit to Newquay zoo back in September

A little lechwe trying to hide behind some tall posts.

Visible to just about everybody!