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.