Late March and April update

The spring months are finally upon us and the park is now open to the general public again. In March, Lola was introduced to Biggy, Smalley and Ellie. The boys were used to newcomers and accepted her without a fuss. On the other hand, Ellie wasn’t so used to sharing friends and was rather difficult to please. Biggy and Smalley have been moved to another enclosure just in case they are the reason she is being unsociable. Ellie and Lola meet a couple of times each day and hopefully things will improve.

On 15^th April, Thor the Asian Short-Clawed Otter moved home to Tropaquaria near Minehead. This is after Thor found it hard to get along with some of the other otters (after his partner Sonny passed away); we wish him all the best with his new home.

In March we had a visit from BBC’s “Escape to the Country”, who spent the morning filming with Mandy for a 3 minute spot in a future broadcast. We haven’t been notified by the BBC about the date of broadcasting yet, but will post it here when we find out. A huge thank you to the entire “Escape to the Country” team who braved the only wet day of the week to come and film us and of course the otters.

To make a very good day even better Ellie caught her first frog on camera whilst filming with Mandy and Johnny!

Now the park is open, if you visit you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of at least six young Joeys and a newly born Muntjac Fawn.

The Scottish Wild Cats have temporarily been separated; this is a standard precaution in case the female has fallen pregnant while she was in season, we will keep you up to date on this story.

On the subject of baby animals the Chinese Fawn Geese and the Barnacle Geese have been squabbling over nesting sites, on the island on the Waterfowl Lake. Two nests (one duck one goose) were sited near to each other and have been transformed into one large nest containing 7 goose eggs and many duck eggs. This “supernest” is being sat on by a white duck, a brown duck AND a goose. How’s that for communal living?

This means we could be expecting some new editions on the lake soon. Strangely there are thousands of tadpoles on the Marsh Lake and none on the Waterfowl Lake.

Thank you for reading and have a happy Easter!