Lion Attack!

At last something worthwhile to show of these lazy lions.

The male – Mawumba – is apparently quite “moody” (it’s why the zoo don’t print the names of the lions – cus Mawumba gets fed-up/irritated by visitors shouting “Mawumba, Mawumba” all day long at him)

He wasn’t going to budge an inch of his lardy ass this afternoon.

So i decided to encourage, or rather “provoke” him into action. In other words get on his wick. Lol.

I lobbed some sticks over the high wire fence. That woke him up.

Then i kept staring at him. Deliberately staring at him. So he started yawning (showing his teeth)

Then i following him around bobbing my head up and down in an exxagerated fashion. He was starting to get “stimulated”; jumping and pouncing about on Indu.

Quite alot of rolling over to show his belly too. I took this to be a double-bluff: it looked submissive; but it was more about showing how strong and safe he felt; strong enough to show his soft vulnerable underbelly to me.

When i started dodging behind bushes though – he’d had enough; he was narked, riled. Then i shook the leaves – and immediately he pounced towards the fence to threaten me. ( i didn’t get that on camera, cus it happened so unexpectedly)

He was out to get me then. He’d “clocked” me as an irritant to be got rid of.

He attacked the fence twice more (i got them on film)

I’ve condensed the 40 minutes i was with these lions into a 2 minute vid.

It excited me exciting this male lion. Poking his instinctive raw aggression – to bite my blinking head off!

Plane on the hill over the lechwe

What a long title this post has got!

It was about 4 o’clock. I deliberately stood under the tree trying to get the leaves to frame the foreground.

I’ve added some quiet droney music to mimic the slow drone of the plane.

Pictures of Godfrey

I’d climbed over the low barrier (abit naughty) to poke the digi through the wire fence.

Godfrey looks comical, and yet immaculate – in a slightly dishevelled kind of way!

He logged on to his bit of wood

Then did his precarious strut across

I think he might have been showing off abit really

A silly old show-off is our Godfrey

It was great to see him again. He’s like a familiar old friend.

Godfrey back, all aflap

I hadn’t seen”Godfrey” the Maribou Stork all Summer long. Had he been transferred to another zoo? Was he mating somewhere? Was he ill? Was he dead?!

When i got to his enclosure there was – as usual – no Godfrey, but the door of his house was open. I deciced to sit on the nearby bench, have some lunch – and wait.

Half an hour later he arrived!

He must be a lovely chap Godfrey; the keepers were fondly stroking his long beaky bills.

I climbed over the low fence to get a closer look at him. And he came over to have a closer look at me, poking his beak through as if wanting to shake hands.

Godfrey is one of my favourite “characters” in this zoo.

Randy & Mandy alone together

Can you stand to have yet another vid of the red pandas? (yeah, course you can – they’re cuddly)

Not that they’re cuddling one another that much. They’ve been together 6 or 7 weeks now and i don’t see much interaction going on between them.

Best you can say is that the’re not not getting on. They’re benignly ignoring one another.

Happy to co-exist but not co-habit. Content enough to be alone together.

Hopefully they’ll warm up to one another eventually.

Get the Winter over first. Then it’ll be a Spring romance.

That Randy’s gonna come acourting ya Mand!

Hanging out in the early evening sun

Black tailed marmosets hung out waiting for insects to fly in.

While also basking in the warm sun of early evening

How illuminated they were was transfixing (these clips aren’t fully showing what i saw/experienced/felt)

You hope for little moments of illumination like this.

And then they happen.

Solitary Cheetah

I’ve only posted once before about this cheetah.

He’s up at the top end of the zoo, secreted away in his small enclosure. Solitary.

He prowls quietly around.

When small children are about he seems to take an extra longer look through the glass!

He (or maybe it’s a she) seems too on his own.

And there’s no room for him to do what he does best: run like the wind.

Hooting & Billing

An new Emu (must have only been here a few weeks)

A Magpie Goose.

Black Crowned Cranes loudly hooting (too loud – i’ve had to drastically reduce the ear-splitting shriek)

And then an Abyssinian Ground Hornbill wanting to peck my eyes out.

Eyeballing me through a thick pane of dirty glass.

Ostrich Takes 2

Doing exactly the same prancing walk from 2 different cameras.

Same result.

Same feeling. Of solitary melancholy.

This was about the furthest away any animal was in Newquay zoo. Everywhere is so close-up, intimate, dinky.

Supersonic Penguins

More from the lovely day at Newquay Zoo.

It’s 4 o’clock; must be feeding time for Humboldt’s penguins (Humboldt was nowhere to be seen)

They don’t just swim through the water, they positively fly through it like little turbo-jet rockets

Gulls – typically – scavenge around for a free meal so have to be clapped off..

I think the penguins should just bomb into these gulls and detonate the pesky bleeders!