Merry Christmas!

I have a short post for you as promised, I will give you a quick update on goings on at the park. Hilda's cub, is probably the fattest otter cub we have ever had. The cub's eyes are now open and it can move freely around the holt. Hilda is still incredibly protective and lets William know when he is too close to the holt.

We have been blessed this year by the absence of snow, although the rain has caused problems they hardly compare to those posed by the snow last year. Dasher is hungrier than usual this is probably due to the cold weather, apart from that he is fine. Then to end on a high we are convinced Tomi the Asian Short-Clawed Otter is pregnant and Carmen the British Otter looks to have gained some weight recently.

I will bring you an update early next year. Merry Christmas! This is Mini Keeper signing off for 2011!

Baby post

The park has now officially closed it's gates to the public until Easter 2012.

Since the closure of the centre, plenty has gone on some good, some not so good, but that is how things tend to go in the animal profession. Unfortunately we are unsure if Tilly ever gave birth, all we can say safely is that are certainly no cubs there now. We may never know what happened. Although looking on the brighter side Tilly doesn't seem to have suffered any trauma.

On October 21st whilst staying in Newcastle we received a phone call from one of the keepers. Coady, the female British Otter had given birth. Sadly to make a long story shorter we are positive that Coady no longer has any cubs. This could be due to the fact she had never been a mother before.

You may not believe it but four days later our female British Otter, Hilda gave birth. Unlike Tilly and Coady, Hilda had a good track record when it came to motherhood (successfully raising her first cub, Pluto who is now a fully fledged beautiful adult Otter.) Also unlike the other two, Hilda still has her cub.

It is now late November and we are now seeing Hilda's cub on a regular basis, and we also know it has been outside at least twice!

Staying with the genre of offspring, our Barn owls were seen mating and our female Tawny owl has made herself a nest. So it seems that the birds of prey have become a little muddled up with the seasons.

Thank you for reading and I will have another post for you before Christmas.

Tilly's 1st newsflash

Just a quick bulletin for you all, this morning an Otter was heard squealing from Tilly's box. In between the squeals there were short pauses; so there is a chance she may be giving birth! All the other Otters were in the box with her, with one coming out to lookout for danger every now and then. Everyone at the Park is beginning to get excited, so keep your fingers crossed!Keep an eye out for another bulletin!

September Update

We are now less than a month away from the Park's annual closure for the winter months. This season like all the others has flown by.

Now September has come and gone the weather outside has already cooled into winter, after that unbelievably hot week. With all that aside its time to update you on all the goings on at the Centre.

Congratulations to Mandy, Jacqui & Pat and everyone else that contributes to the running of the tea room as they have just received their second Gold CHEFS Award from Cornwall Council. This recognises premises that serve food, on their high standards of hygiene, and their commitment to providing good quality food with healthy options and the sourcing of some local products. They are thrilled to have received the award again as it shows all the hard work that goes into providing a high quality service to everyone that visits the Centre.

I told you that Asian Short-Clawed Otters Henry and Leah were spending every living moment together and that they had been seen mating. Well what happened next wasn't even thought of at the time, Henry continued to mate frequently with Leah, although he started to develop an interest in leah's older sister; Tilly. This didn't seem so significant until the last week of September, Tilly looked unusually big, and her teats were twice their normal size, Tilly was also far less agile. Even though this was unexpected, it can of course only be good news. (Although it is typical we are about to close our gates to the public for the year.) When she gives birth or anything worth knowing about occurs there will be an unscheduled blog post.

While we are on the subject of offspring, we have had a peahen lay a clutch of eggs recently, I brought up this matter as she demonstrated the most unusual behaviour. The keepers thought that her nest looked rather uncomfortable and damp, so while she was gone some straw was placed in the nest. We were unsure whether she would sit again before her bed was re-made, due to the fact that our peahen's track record is pretty poor when it comes to motherhood. Although, she did come back and even though her nest looked different she decided to sit back on them! This is the first time we have witnessed any behaviour like this at the Park.

Unfortunately though like all things the animal profession has it's ups and downs, on 7th of September our male European Eagle Owl, Poirot sadly passed away after exhibiting very odd behaviour for the entirety of that day. Poirot came to us from Belgium several years ago, he was 28 years old. Our current female is living on her own for now until we can find her a new mate.

If you are planning to visit us soon remember that we close after the school half-term holiday. Look out for your next update or a newsflash on Tilly.

August is the busiest month of the year at the park. Although this year it hasn't just been busy with visitors, this August we welcomed the arrival of two Scottish Polecats.

They were living off show, but they can now be seen in their enclosure down by the Marsh lake. If you are unsure what a Polecat is, a Ferret is the domesticated sub-species of a Polecat.

We are also crossing all fingers over the hope of new editions of the "Otterly" cute kind. Henry and Leah, Troy and Carmen and thirdly William and Hilda have all been seen mating. This would be great if cubs were to be born at the park. Especially if they were British Otters, as they are renowned for being hard to breed in captivity.

Jack the Kestrel has settled into life under the public eye rather well. He has now been living at the park for a month. Jack spends the day on his perch, he then returns to his aviary for the evening.

We have begun to teach Skylar the Harris Hawk the basic of flying to and from the glove. First lessons are rarely productive and Skylar was no exception. The birds tend to spend the first session just taking in their surroundings; as there are many disturbing waterfowl and peacocks.

Although the weather hasn't been a clear indicator, there have been some signs of summer at late. Such as the sighting of Kingfishers, if you aren't able to see them you will probably see them around the area.

August has also been a busy month for the Fallow deer. The fawns are now fairly confident and are not too afraid of getting close to the public. Our two young Bucks have showed the first signs of "rutting" this is a period of tome when the males battle for dominance. They have had a couple of scraps, but nothing too serious. Although I shall certainly let you know if anything ground breaking happens on this front.

Once again thank you to all you followers and don't forget to look out for your September update.

July Update

If you have read the June update then you may remember me mentioning that I was going to tell you about our latest feathery edition. Our newest bird to arrive at the park is Jack the Kestrel.

Kestrels are one of the smaller birds in the Bird of Prey family. Our little Jack weighs in at around 8 ounces, so he is lighter than your average bag of sugar! Jack has an extremely powerful beak; in the wild he would use it to break the necks of field mice, bank voles, small birds and other animals of a similar size.

Jack was hand reared by the keepers and lived at home with us for six weeks. At home he had the luxuries of central heating and the television, which he really enjoyed watching in the evening.

We received Jack from a breeder just outside Plymouth, Devon. He is now 14 weeks old, and can be seen on his block perch in our bird display area or in his newly constructed aviary.

Our bird display area is another new attraction at the centre. There are handling sessions every day at 12.30 and 2.30pm. Other birds you can see include Skylar the Harris Hawk, Tooki the Snowy Owl and Karulah the Bengal Eagle Owl. Members of the public can get up close and friendly with all of theses birds.

All six of our Bronze Turkeys have been released into the woods at the park. They can be seen roaming through the trees and foraging for food. Although they aren’t fully grown they will be a colourful edition to the woods when they do reach adulthood.

After Lola sadly passed away, Ellie has been living alone ever since. She went through a short stage of feeling sorry for herself, but with a little TLC and a lot of playtime she has returned to her old self. Ellie can now be seen worshipping the sun or playing with a keeper at the 12 and 3 o’clock feeds.

Be sure to look out for your next update on the fawns, love is in the air at some of the Otter enclosures and there is another new species at the park.

Ellie on Youtube August 2011

Follow the link below to see Ellie having a great time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq9coG5dRYw