Tamar Otter & Wildlife Centre

2011-12-24T10:55:00.002Z

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

2011-11-30T15:39:00.002Z

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

2011-10-09T16:22:00.004+01:00

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

2011-10-09T15:54:00.003+01:00

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.

2011-09-15T17:52:00.002+01:00

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

2011-09-04T09:59:00.001+01:00

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

2011-08-26T17:29:00.001+01:00

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

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

Lola

2011-07-12T19:52:00.002+01:00

Lola as you would have read has had a tough time before and after she came to us. After coming through her operation and beginning to gain her fitness and confidence another hurdle was thrown at her.

She came down with another infection last week which took hold very quickly and despite antibiotics and other treatment she died on Friday night. A very sad time for us all at the Centre as we had worked so hard to rehabilitate her and we had hoped the corner had been turned. She was a real fighter but sometimes nature takes over and we have to accept that some things are not meant to be.

Her pen is very empty without her.

June Update

2011-07-07T21:50:00.001+01:00

We are now halfway through the year and at the park we are just over half way through the introductions of our new editions to the public and in some cases to their new roomies. I say this as not all of the latest editions are on display yet.

Before we move on to that there are two other stories I would like to bring to your attention. Unfortunately on the 2^nd June, Lola the British Otter sustained a series of deep wounds to her rear end. These wounds became infected and Lola had to be taken to the vet to be operated on.

The entire procedure was made more complicated as Lola had to be anaesthetized, as you can imagine a conscious Otter in an operating theatre would leave you in a bit of a pickle and the vet without any fingers! The reason this caused the procedure to become more complex is due to the simple fact that Otters are not well known for their ability to recover from anaesthetic. The actual scientific reason for this is unknown, but Otters cannot be given an injection and left to come round like other animals. They have to be brought round actively, in simple English you have to stimulate their senses manually. Through out the night my Dad was moving her main bodily muscles and giving her fluid. She had a stage at about 11pm, when she would become partially conscious for about ten seconds. At 1am she came around fully although she was unable to use one of her eyes and her hind legs. She stayed at home for a couple of days while she regained the use of all of her body and was passed on to solid food like any young cub would be. She is now fine and has been back at the park for a month.

If you can remember all the way back to the last update, (which was my fault!) Thor the Asian Short-Clawed Otter moved to Tropaquaria near Glastonbury. After failing to settle in there Thor came back. He had several cuts and a kidney infection, the other Otters attacked Thor; because of this Thor may have stopped drinking substantial amounts of water which may have caused the kidney infection. Looking on the bright side he has made a good recovery and is now very much enjoying life with former roommate Tiny.

This brings me onto the re-homing of several Otters. These Otters include Henry the Asian Short-Clawed Otter and British Otters; Pluto, Troy and Coady. Henry has been brought in from another site to keep females Tomi, Tiny and Leah occupied and hopefully he will produce the pitter, patter of tiny feet during the process.

Troy the British Otter has now reached maturity and after a spell of illness he has been moved in with Carmen who is an experienced female Otter. In the courtship of British Otters it is a matriarchal society, and Carmen wasted no time in reminding Troy of this. This made Troy a little nervous but they are now getting along fine.

Carmen’s daughter Coady has now left home and has moved in with bubbly young male Tor. After a scuffle they weren’t too keen on each other, but after realising this move was more long term than just passing through they have begun to tolerate each other’s presence.

Pluto; daughter of William and Hilda has moved to Buckfastleigh across the Cornish border on loan. After the centre there lost their female to natural causes, we hope Pluto enjoys her holiday!

Moving away from the Otters, the latest editions have arrived, no these aren’t Deer fawns or Otter cubs they are Chipmunks! They are currently off view to the public after a few nights at home with us they are now waiting for their new enclosure to be finished off.

Although we do have six newly born Fallow Deer fawns at the park! They have just started to move around with the herd, but are still very dependent on their mothers. In the next week or so they will set up a fawn minding rota so that fewer females spend time away from the herd. Also Harris hawk; Skylar is living at the park full time she has become too big to stay at home. She can be seen on a stand or in her aviary.

Watch out for your July update when you find out more about the park’s latest feathery edition.

May Update

2011-07-07T21:47:00.001+01:00

Hello readers, the summer is almost here and May was an eventful month to say the least.

This year’s goslings (Barnacles and Chinese Fawn) have just recently entered the world and are already exploring the area around the waterfowl lake (not venturing too far from mum). One of the Chinese Fawn Geese was sitting on 15 eggs; 8 of hers and then 4 Indian Runner and 3 Mallard. It’s not only cuckoo’s that lay in other birds’ nests! She hatched four of her 8 eggs but got off her nest before the rest of the clutch were ready. We took the four remaining eggs and put them under a broody hen owned by Helen, one of the ladies who works here and two of them hatched a few days later. They’re still with their foster mother but she’s a bit bemused that the keep grazing and paddling but won’t scratch they way she knows they should!

The Wallaby joeys can now be seen more frequently popping their heads out of the pouch in the far end of the wood. We think there are eight of them and they range in size from small and skinny and about 10 inches tall to well rounded, rather plump and about 14 inches tall.

We continue to try to introduce Ellie and Lola, our two wild born cubs, to each other. As you may recall they get on well with Biggy and Smalley but not with each other. They had supervised visits to each other for 21 days but this approach didn’t work and Ellie was occasionally very aggressive towards Lola ; sometimes they would play quite nicely for several minutes and then for no apparent reason Ellie would go on the attack.

Ellie and Lola are now living as semi-detached neighbours to one another. This is to encourage them to socialise, but nothing can become out of hand as they are on opposite sides of the fence. They are fed along side this fence so they can become gradually used to each other’s presence. They have struggled to get on in the past as they have very different personalities; Ellie is constantly energetic and in your face, while Lola is seldom seen.

A new edition to the park is Skylar the Harris hawk, she is now one month old. She spent just over a month living at home with us frequently displaying her poor manners at dinner time! She is very tame and we hope to fly her in the close future. Harris Hawks are very social birds; this is why Skylar was kept in the lounge so that her brain was regularly stimulated by her surroundings. If Harris Hawks aren’t stimulated often, they will become bored and disobedient towards their trainer. This is why her trainer (my little sister; Frances); took her for walks on the glove around the garden and eventually the rest of the village. This is so she would develop confidence before she learnt to fly.

Look out for the June update that is all about our latest editions at the centre!

2011-04-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

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!

The Saga continues, but with a twist...

2011-04-01T16:50:00.002+01:00

If you're a regular here you'll know by now that Biggy and Smalley have been injured by Raymond and Thor. They've been separated and Biggy and Smalley are now back living with a British otter cub, Ellie; the boys are recovering well after a course of treatment and are much more like there old selves and no permanent damage seems to have been done.

It took nearly 3 weeks to introduce Ellie to Biggy and Smalley so its quite a time consuming process.

Our newest arrival, Lola, another British cub has been with us for nearly four weeks and is well on the road to recovery so we have decided to begin introducing her to Ellie and the boys. Over the last week or so Lola has been going in with Ellie, Biggy and Smalley for two or three hours a day of closely supervised contact (thick gloves on for the keepers, just in case). Lola (aged 10 weeks) can't swim yet so all of the contact is on dry land.

As usual Biggy and Smalley have been little stars and after their initial aloofness have welcomed contact with Lola just as they've done with the numerous other otters they've looked after. They actively seek her out to play, sleep, groom and are really gentle with her.

The same cannot be said for Ellie, who at about 16 weeks old is quite a bit bigger than Lola. After a period of fear, then shyness Ellie now seems to regard Lola as a toy to be dragged, thrown and generally abused. We haven't seen this sort of behaviour in such a young otter before and we're worried that Lola may get hurt before Ellie comes round to regarding her as a companion.

We had hoped to be able to introduce Lola to the group once she could swim (which won't be too long because we're giving her plenty of encouragement and opportunities to practice and she's starting to really enjoy it - so much that she bit Sonia the other day because Sonia had to end the lesson and get on with other duties!) but that can't happen until we're sure they'll get along. So at the moment Lola will be kept inside until a) she becomes a competent swimmer and b) Ellie decides to be more sociable.

Links to more Ellie video on Youtube

2011-03-24T19:55:00.002Z

Smalley and Ellie (16 weeks old) chilling out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tamarotters#p/a/u/0/EQo2Hk7WPzM

Ellie (14 weeks old) having a day out with her boys

http://www.youtube.com/user/tamarotters#p/a/u/1/PwpXds5mdRc

2011-03-22T15:59:00.002Z

Biggy and Smalley update

Another unexpected update just to let all you Biggy and Smalley lovers know that on the morning of March 20th Biggy was found in quite a state. It seems Thor isn't quite the cute cuddly Otter he seemed, Biggy was in the sleeping box terrified and had bites on the back of his head. One of the keepers removed him from the pen and the good news is Biggy and Smalley have been reunited and are both living with Ellie. We will have to keep an eye on Thor in case he does the same to Raymond.

2011-03-19T14:35:00.002Z

Biggy and Smalley update

Recently Thor was introduced to Raymond, Biggy, Smalley and Ellie. But unfortunately on the 18th March, Thor started acting aggressively towards Smalley, shortly though Raymond and Biggy joined in and Smalley was bitten a few times on his left side. Smalley was absolutely terrified, we believe he was singled out like this as he is a runt.

Biggy, Raymond and Thor have been moved out to a different enclosure and Smalley is currently living with British Otter cub Ellie. On the 19th after a bit of TLC, extra attention and reassurance Smalley is in a much better state and is getting friendly with Ellie he is just in a state of shock as is Biggy who has been frequently calling for him, but Smalley won't reply to him. We will update you if anything happens on this matter.

13th March 2011

2011-03-19T14:33:00.002Z

February and early March update

In February half-term we had a week when friends from Surrey came down and helped us to prepare the park for the upcoming season. This involved clearing parts of the woodland and other general maintenance . A huge thank you to all of them!

In early March we received a female Otter cub, that was found in Wadebridge which we have named Lola. She was found on the side of the road, she is recovering as she is extremely shy and was very thin and dehydrated. We hope to introduce her to Ellie in the near future.

On the subject of Ellie, she has had a very eventful few weeks. She is now living with Asian Short Clawed Otters; Biggy and Smalley and their Dad; Raymond, they all get along. However they can take advantage of her if there is food involved, but as long as a keeper is around at feeding time she is fine.

Dasher is now enjoying the sunshine that is just starting to come back to us after the cold winter months. He is now almost an internet star, he is on Youtube, but I’m not sure it’s had many views!

Our Silver Pheasants will hopefully gain a little more attention this year as the males are sure to catch a few eyes with their stunning plumage. This is because they were only little when we were last open.

Next month I will include a late March update as well as an April update so keep an eye on this page!

Youtube links

2011-03-05T08:19:00.002Z

For video of Ellie and Dasher please follow these links.

Ellie getting used to water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbzYNuvUo1o

Ellies growing confidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdQTumO3pmg

Deer ecstasy

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

2011-02-07T16:54:00.001Z

Hello to all readers!!!

January was an extremely eventful month. To get the sad news out of the way first, Sonny our thirteen year old female Asian Short Clawed Otter died at the start of the month. This being an exceptional age for an Otter, she was found in the morning with her partner Raymond who was still cuddled up to her.

Raymond is now very much enjoying bachelor life with his two sons; Biggy and Smalley, who have welcomed their dad as a play mate. He like Biggy and Smalley was also hand reared by staff at the centre as a cub, after his mother’s milk dried up.

Our little Joey was staying in a temporary enclosure at the centre, after his mother had a Joey early this year and kicked him out. He is now enjoying the freedom of the entire park and has settled back in very well, after a couple of weeks of TLC.

We received a female British Otter cub from the Dorset Wildlife Rescue on the 31^st January, “Ellie” had been taken very good care of by them but needed a permanent home. She has settled in very well and is spending the day at the park so that she can exercise and learn to swim but has to go home with a Keeper at the end of the day as she still needs feeding before bedtime. Our aim is to rehabilitate her and if all goes to plan release her back out into the wild in the future.

Some of the owl aviaries have had minor changes applied, with a few new boxes here and there, being placed in more convenient places.

That being all I have to say make sure to keep an eye out for your February update.

A very fortunate otter.

2011-01-31T19:48:00.000Z

Early on the morning of Saturday 29^th January 2011 we received a telephone call from Kim, a lady living on a large country estate in our area, with an unusual tale to tell.

In the middle of the previous evening she had come out of her house to collect firewood from her stack. It was very cold, dry and dark. She was close by her front door when she heard a strange repetitive squeaking and then out of the gloom came a young otter cub.

It walked right to her feet and stood there, still squeaking, looking up at her and certainly in need of some help. Where it had come from was a bit of a mystery; Kim lives at the top of a large hill around half a mile from the nearest natural water.

Kim was of course a little taken aback at this and whilst thinking about how to help the poor youngster she retreated back to her house; she may have been thinking of how to capture the cub but it seemed to read her mind and followed her through her front door and into her house and saved her the effort!

Shortly afterwards the young animal was tucked up for the night in a comfortable dog crate with water, some rainbow trout and two pigeon breasts which, although not typical otter food, seemed to go down very well.

The following morning Kim rang us and we went over to see how we could help. The cub was a fighting fit 8 or 9 week old with no obvious illness or injury, we didn’t manage to sex it (after the third bite on my arm I thought it probably wasn’t that important anyway).

We had a chat with Michael, Kim’s neighbour, who knew that otters had been seen recently playing under a nearby bridge in an isolated location and we decided to try and reunite the cub with its mum there. Mandy and I did this once before and our feeling was that because otter mothers are so devoted she was unlikely to leave the area without searching for her offspring. If we acted quickly enough she was still likely to be hanging around.

We all travelled down to the bridge in question and searched for signs of mum, but if she was there, she wasn’t going to make it easy for us to find her. The cub wasn’t helping much either, it was in a small cat box we had brought with us sleeping off its large breakfast under a very colourful old towel.

The box cannot be opened from the inside by the cub but it can be opened from the outside by mum if she pulls it towards herself which is what most otters do. She was also the only otter likely to be in the near vicinity as our British Otters are territorial animals. So with that in mind we decided to leave the cub in the box near to the riverside and return to it at dusk.

Several hours later three of us returned to the site and from a distance the box looked exactly as we had left it; there were no signs of mum.

I approached the box and as I neared it I could see the towel inside, about the size of the cub and the right shape and I thought that the cub was still in there. But as I got even closer I could see that the red door had been pulled open and that there were large muddy paw prints both on and inside the box. Just to be sure I picked up the box and it was far too light to contain the cub. The cub was clean as a whistle when we put it in wrapped in the towel so the mud had come from something else. We are very confident that mum had returned and collected her baby. A very satisfying result and well worth the efforts of all those involved.

December update

2011-01-05T18:45:00.003Z

December, December, December… where to begin? Let’s start with the weather! Over the festive period the park was hit with a couple of inches of snow, meaning hot water wasn’t working at times, fish were freezing under 9 inches of ice, and wallabies were wandering over the ice and getting stuck on the island in the middle of the Waterfowl Lake.

We also celebrated a birthday, our Asian Short-Clawed Otter; Sonny, turned thirteen on the 23^rd December. Her age is starting to show, so she is now receiving an extra meal every day during the cold months and plenty of fresh straw for her bedding.

On Boxing Day a small Joey (baby Wallaby) was found and looked as though it was starting to give in to the weather, as it’s mother had an early offspring this time around and wouldn’t let the older Joey inside the pouch, so the youngster spent a week altogether under the care of the Keepers and their families.

Our first main task of the winter has been completed, and now the Scottish Wildcats enjoy a 3^rd section to their enclosure they now have an elevated feeding station, new shelters and a steeper terrain.

Our juvenile Snowy Owl; Tooki has been free flying, though he’s not always as well behaved as we’d like him to be. He has sometimes proved hard to get back and had to be retrieved from a neighbouring field in early December.

The Otters have been enjoying the new additions to their winter diet which are aimed at keeping them warm. All of them love hard boiled eggs and all but Biggy thoroughly enjoy warm baked potatoes with mince stuffing.

The lowlight for the Otters this month is that Leah, a female Asian Short-Clawed Otter has had two infections in her mouth which makes eating difficult for her. She is going to have an operation on Friday 7^th January to correct this problem with her teeth.

Make sure to keep an eye on the page for your January Otter update.

2010-11-24T20:10:00.002Z

Hello out there to all you Tamar Otter Blog Spot readers, November has whizzed by and the festive season is nearly upon us and a lot has been going on. In early November my Dad went to Essex for a day to collect a female Bengal Eagle Owl after our former female passed away about a year ago.

Only two and a bit weeks later Mum and Dad went to Dorset to pick-up a European Eagle Owl to company our male Poirot, whose partner Lucy sadly departed us after a long life, a few months ago.

Now we have closed to the public all the maintenance will be carried out and other projects such as extending the Scottish Wildcat enclosure will take place.

The young Fallow Deer fawn is now becoming rather confident around the keepers and will hopefully continue to be.

A bit of clearing was also in order after the floods in Cornwall, there was damage to the main fence after the local river burst its’ banks.

Talks have been on going about a release site for Tor and Libby, after a few weeks a site has been found.

Also on the 25^th November Biggy and Smalley will celebrate their 3^rd birthday. So don’t forget to tune in for your December update.

(or earlier if anything exciting happens)

My First Post

2010-10-17T16:47:00.002+01:00

To all Tamar Otters blog spot readers this is “Mini Keeper at Tamar Otters” first monthly post. Well, the question is where to start considering you missed the last two months Dad!

Let’s start with babies because everyone loves babies don’t they?

Well anyway, in August my friend (Josh Brown) and I were admiring the woods at the park, when he spotted a young Muntjac fawn that was just a few days old, apart from being one of the cutest things I have ever seen its great to see the Muntjac flourishing in their surroundings, I promise to keep you informed on this one!

Recently in September two young Wallabies were spotted (well, the odd wiggly tail or pink leg sticking out of Mum’s pouch), I have had the pleasure of seeing one of them; they are around a month old.

We also have a new Fallow Deer fawn that was born in early September which is unusually late for a Fallow Deer.

Tooki the young Snowy Owl (short for Pirtuk, which means blizzard in Inuit) is now 3 months old and has now reached the juvenile stage of his life; he has become quite a hit with the public.

All the Otters are now adapting to the new season ahead, as the Asian Otters don’t really share the love of the wet and cold weather like the British Otters do.

The Scottish Wild Cats have settled in very well, their enclosure is also much brighter since the tree surgeon visited to remove diseased and dangerous trees. Our Silver Pheasant hatchlings have been moved to their own aviary in the woods. The Fallow deer fawns are also slowly growing in confidence.

Oh! And its also Raymond’s 13^th birthday on the 17^th October. Happy Birthday Raymond!

We have also found a Guinea Fowl in the Compound (where all the old appliances go!) sitting on twenty-four eggs, unfortunately due to the cold weather ahead they are unlikely to hatch.

So all is well, remember to keep a close eye on the blog in November for your next monthly update.

The Otter Keeper's last post

2010-10-17T16:39:00.001+01:00

Ten months in to 2010 already. I apologise for my failure to keep up with the blog during the summer months, for us it is the busiest time of the year. It’s now the time of the year for changes, kids going back to school in September, summer changing to autumn in October, this change is a little different however, I will be handing the reigns of the Tamar Otters blog spot to my son Rhys “Mini Keeper at Tamar Otters” as he is undertaking journalism for the skill section of his Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Summer time

2010-07-23T16:31:00.003+01:00

July is upon us already, what happened to June I don't know but we must have been busy so that's okay.

Recently my Auntie Joyce sent me a newspaper clipping stating that 150 toad corpses had been found on the banks of a loch on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. After detailed examination it was decided that these were otter prey. What appears to have happened is that the otter has caught the toads (probably with his feet; whenever I've seen otters mouth toads they drop them pretty quickly because they can't stand the taste of his noxious skin) and then somehow managed to open the toad and turn it inside out to get at the flesh of the rear legs without having to mouth the skin. It must be a very tasty meal to repeatedly go to all that effort. This behaviour has been reported before but I think it is interesting. Clever otter eh?

Back to Cornwall and all is well here. We've four new Fallow fawns and two more on the way (judging by the stupendous size of two does).

The two adult bucks are still growing their first full set of antlers and they both look very regal whilst the yearling prickets have their first set of prongs. Even though they are only two thirds grown the prickets have very high opinions of themselves and are intent on pushing everyone else around and making sure they get noticed by everyone; this isn't always a good strategy as they sometimes pick on the mature bucks and are firmly put back in their place.

The Guinea Fowl are laying eggs everywhere and not sitting on any of them though we've managed to incubate quite a few along with several Silver Pheasants. The Peahens have shown no real inclination to pair off, mate, nest build or lay eggs which is very disappointing. The Peacocks seem to have given up on the hens and are losing their tails already (which does seem rather early for them).

All of the otters are fine although Thor, one of our Asian Short Claws, had to be taken out of his pen and isolated for a week due to an abscess in his mouth. He started looking a bit lethargic and then began to be excessively noisy when eating so we decided to take him out of the limelight and get him some medical help. He was quite unwell for a few days but then picked up quickly. We gave him as many toys and puzzles as we could find/organise but towards the end of his confinement he was getting quite bored with us and seemed very pleased to get back home with his girls. Its always a bit of a worry putting otters back together even if they know each other but all went well and he was made a real fuss of by the girls on his return.

We have a new Snowy Owl who is now just over 5 weeks old. He lives at home with us at the moment and I take him to work during the day. He's settled in very nicely and is starting to look a little more like an owl rather than a rather lost penguin. His appetite is huge and once fed he usually nods off and lies down on his front in a heap. Yes, he nods off first then goes down which explains the heap.

The Scottish Wildcats are becoming much more bold than they were when they arrived and have developed an unusual hunting method. They lie adjacent to the fencing and stay completely still. Wildlife, usually birds such as crows, hop up to the fencing and then the cats strike with their feet through the fence and drag the unfortunate victim in for tea!

Lets hope for some half decent weather.

Cinnamon and Leap

2010-05-30T19:02:00.003+01:00

Its over three months now since Cinnamon and Leap were released and although we haven't actually seen them on our regular visits to the site we have seen many signs of their presence. Today the kids and I decided to have a good leg stretch near to the release area. It was a nice but breezy day; as we watched the surface of the river we could easily see hundreds of fry, probably salmon and trout babies, in large schools in the shallow water. They were moving from algae covered stone to algae covered stone grazing as they went. In slightly deeper water we came across less numerous parr, (older salmon and trout babies from last year but I can't tell them apart unless they're in my hand and lie still!). There would be an occasional splash as they jumped out of the water for flies. When I was last here two weeks ago there were loads of large brown trout but we didn't see any of them today.

It can be hard looking for otter signs at this time of year due to high vegetation that obscures your view and hard ground makes it difficult to find footprints.

At about midday we found our first ottery sign of the day; it was a couch, a flattened area of reeds in the open air where an otter has rested. And the best news, it was still wet!

That's when we went into indian mode, moving as quietly as we could we moved to the river bank and lay down on a bend in the river about six feet above the surface of the water. We settled down and waited. I find that you have to let nature settle down for a few minutes before you can really expect to see much. That amount of time usually equates to Frances' boredom threshold...

Thank goodness we didn't have to wait too long, after 15 minutes or so we saw a long brown furry animal slink into the water about 100 yards to our left, a beautiful otter, in a bit of a lazy mood by the looks of things. He (or she, it was too far to say with confidence) paddled diagonally across the river towards us in a very languid relaxed sort of way. Head out of the water most of the time but with a dip every now and then to see what was going on below the surface. No haste, no rush, just a well fed killer out for a paddle.

Then one of those peculiar moments when you're watching animals in the wild when it gets so close to you and then its gone! We couldn't decide where! We waited for ages (Frances "can we go now"- and it was her who had spotted our otter first) and eventually moved on.

An hour or so later Rhys and I saw an interesting bit of movement in the water about 300 yards from our first sighting, we were both sure it was the same otter and only 15 or so yards away! But reeds, wind and lots of tall thorny vegetation contrived to prevent us from seeing it clearly. Very frustrating I've got to say; we can't say that it was an otter but what else would it have been?

Anyway, all in all it was quite a rewarding afternoon and we went home very happy.

Later that evening Mandy came home from work and asked to the kids, "What have you two been up to today?" Frances answer?

"We went to Tesco and bought you a new ink cartridge and we both got top ups for our mobile phones, nothing else really...."

May already?

2010-05-19T19:48:00.002+01:00

Well, whether we were ready to or not we are now open and animals and staff seem to have settled back into things nicely. Everything is starting to look much greener now after the long winter months; the daffodils are disappearing but all of the bluebells are coming out in the woods and the iris’ are getting closer to flowering in the Marsh Lake.

It’s also that time of year when we are starting to get lots of little babies. Our incubator is full of eggs at the moment, mainly guinea fowl (as they are such poor mums) they will leave their eggs all over the park for us to collect and look after. A couple of their eggs are currently hatching and we already have three Chinese Fawn goslings and some other chicks in the shed. They are all just a few weeks old and when they get a bit bigger can be released into the park with the rest of the waterfowl and poultry. Out in the park one of our chickens has four chicks, which she has managed to look after very well and is very protective of them should anyone try and get too close! We also have two moorhen chicks on the marsh lake which follow their mum around closely and look very cute and tiny! We are also waiting for some babies as one of our Barnacle Geese is currently sat on a nest along with our Little Owls - very exciting! It’s also not just our birds that are expecting babies, we had a count up of our Fallow Deer the other day and think that at least six of the does are looking heavily pregnant and the fawns should start arriving anytime after the first of June.

Cinnamon and Leap still seem to be doing well. We still haven’t seen them ourselves but have seen an abundance of fish and other potential prey in the area so that may explain why they seem to be hanging around.

Dasher along with the other deer has moulted out his winter coat and is now growing his hair back on his shaved area and is starting to look very handsome indeed! He is also enjoying all of the extra attention he gets from visitors and staff and if he feels he is lacking in it, he will make a point of coming to find people and sniff inquisitively at their hands in the hope of finding a monkey nut or a grape.

Our Fallow Deer bucks are just starting to lose their antlers ready to grow back a new pair. Unfortunately this irritates them a little bit and they seem to be more destructive than usual, as they like to rub their antlers on just about anything. We have allowed them to roam around the main part of the park alongside the otter pens to enjoy the sweet taste of fresh grass and plants and hope this takes their mind off their itching heads a little.

The otters are all doing well and seem to enjoy all of the extra attention they get when we are open - particularly Tor, Biggy and Smally. Tor and Libby no longer live with Biggy and Smally as we decided our new British Otter - Troy might like some company, so Biggy and Smally are back to being just the two of them and Tor, Libby and Troy all live together. Troy has gone from being very shy to extremely confident and will come up to us and take fish from our hands, whilst it’s nice he’s so relaxed around us, he can be a bit unnerving, especially as he likes to make sure that he won’t be forgotten and doesn’t seem to hesitate in giving somebody a nip to remind us that he’s there! Tor is also a bit of a handful, he is still very cute, suckling his ‘octi’ to get himself off to sleep and will bounce around the pen after you more like a Labrador than an otter, but he has developed a habit of trying to play with your shoes and clothing in his mouth and gently tugging on them. Although he is very gentle, it is still a bit of a worry! Libby is also a lot more confident now than she used to be, she will also be hand fed and doesn’t seem to worry about sitting outside and eating her lunch in front of visitors although she is still not as relaxed as the other two and is still very vocal. All three of them seem to get on very well together and are extremely playful, using their slide and playing with a ball and hard boiled eggs!

Biggy and Smally are on a bit of a diet, which they don’t seem to appreciate very much, but they are still just as cute as ever and plans are underway for them to go to the Royal Cornwall Show again next month.

Our Scottish Wildcats are also settling in nicely. Initially they were very shy and weren’t too sure about coming out in front of us let alone any visitors that we might have, but now that we have been open a couple of months they seem to be a bit more relaxed and enjoy making the most of our sunny weather - yes, believe it or not we have had some sunshine - and they will set up on their shelves around their pen sunbathing. We think it unlikely that we will have any kittens from them now but our fingers are crossed for next year.

All systems go, well, nearly...

2010-03-28T17:32:00.002+01:00

Well doesn't time just fly by? We're getting ready to open up once more and it doesn't seem two minutes since we closed. Lots of things still need doing (especially painting due to the recent damp weather) but we're well on our way to being ready. The plants and lawns still look a bit wan but I'm sure they'll catch up with the season soon; the extremes of winter weather has put everything back two or three weeks compared to last year. Our daffodils had come and gone by April last year but at the moment they are just coming in to flower.

We have dismantled Cinnamon and Leaps' release pen and will be bringing it back to the Centre soon. We are still visiting the site regularly and they are still living there, still together and seem to be coping very well indeed. We haven't managed to see them ourselves but we have had a couple of reports of a pair of otters being seen in the very near vicinity and it sounds very much like them; they also seem to be avoiding people which is just how it should be. One thing which has taken us by surprise is the presence of water voles in the release area. They made my heart miss more than just one beat late one evening when we took one another by surprise in the dark! I then read up on them and am confident there is a family of them out there, which is nice to know.

Dasher's coat still isn't growing back much but he seems to be doing well in himself; if you see him at the Centre please be gentle with him.

The Fallow Deer bucks are the yob element here at the moment, the are constantly trying to out do one another in the damage stakes. They have been responsible for numerous breakages and acts of wanton vandalism in the last few weeks. Fencing and pipe work is their current favourite target.

All of the otters are well, we'll be changing their diet and feeding times this week and they probably won't be happy with that initially. Tor continues to vie for the title "cutest otter ever". He is very playful and makes it very difficult for us to actually do any work when near him; he brings balls, twigs and his Octi (still suckled on several times a day) over to us to try and get our attention. He likes playing with ducks and peafowl (I'm not joking). He chases and harasses them and then they chase him and harass him back until they all get bored; one day, when he realises that they might be a tasty morsel, things might not end so happily. Tor isn't entirely useless as a hunter, we have seen him chasing and catching food (probably small eels) recently so there is hope for him yet.

We have a new British Otter, Troy, in with Tor at the moment. He's about the same age and they seem to get on well although Troy is very shy. He came from the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey and Kernow has now gone to live there in exchange.

That's all for now, fingers crossed for a bit of nice weather.

Cinnamon and Leap update.

2010-02-19T11:51:00.003Z

We are still visiting Cinnamon and Leap's release site and finding signs of their presence nearby but they still have not been taking the food we leave. We look on this as a positive sign and are very pleased with how things are progressing to date. The camera has not managed to catch them yet but we did have a photograph of an inquisitive Woodpecker staring into the camera!

Back at the Centre with only six weeks until we re-open we have had a very busy half term week. Our working party group from Surrey the Browns, Reaveleys, Tresize and Creasey families all came down and we got a lot of woodland work and other maintenance jobs completed. There is a lot of truth in the saying "many hands make light work" Big thank you to all of you for the help we really do appreciate it.

Dasher is doing extremely well and finds us every day for his handful of monkey nuts and a tickle behind the ears.

The Kestrels aviary has been renovated and they seem to like the changes that have been made. The Scottish Wildcats appear to have settled in and they really do look great up in the quarry area.

Biggy, Smalley, Tor and Libby are still all in together they have made an awful mess of their enclosure so we will be moving them out soon so that we can carry out some essential maintenance. Biggy and Smalley are two years old now but they still enjoy the interaction from the Keepers and Tor also gets very inquisitive. Libby is still the shyest of the four but does come out for her food and we see her playing with the others but she disappears back inside once we get too close.

Carmens cubs Kernow and Coady are a year old this week and they are both bigger than their Mum but very relaxed around the Keepers. Harriet Tamarisk and Lottie are seen daily playing together in the water; Harriet always has an eye on Tamarisk and soon puts him in his place if he steps over the line.

William Hilda and Pluto are all getting along very well, Pluto certainly has his Mothers personalty and hisses at the Keeper at feeding time until he has four chicks then he will go away and eat them.

We will keep you updated on Cinnamon and Leap.

Cinnamon and Leap out and about

2010-02-10T18:21:00.003Z

Dasher continues his recovery, the photograph shows just how radical his surgery was, but he seems to be coping well.

Cinnamon and Leap are now out of their release pen and have been venturing out and exploring their new home in the wild. Interestingly they've only explored a few metres upstream of the release pen but about 400 metres downstream. They are using a very typical otter holt, a partially eroded riverside tree root, as their current home. They haven't gone far though as this site is only 20 metres from their pen!

We've been leaving food out for them but as yet they haven't taken any. There are lots of Swan Mussel shells turning up on the river banks and a distinctly fishy smell emanates from their home under the tree, so they seem to be providing for themselves quite well.

Yesterday I did see a group of ducks on the river scatter and get up into the air in a great hurry as though they were being chased but I didn't see their pursuer. I did however see a big dog fox shortly afterwards and its quite possible that it was him rather than an otter that the ducks were reacting to.

We'll keep leaving out food for the time being just in case they have a difficult days hunting but so far, so good. We are trying to get some photographs of them in their new environment with a remote camera but so far they have eluded the lens, we'll keep trying though.

Dasher/ Cinnamon and Leap

2010-02-02T18:21:00.002Z

No, its okay we haven't put the three of them in the same pen!

Dasher is still doing very well and has cottoned on the the fact that everyone has a soft spot for him and that he only has to make an appearance to be showered with nuts and grapes. His coat is regrowing but is a rather odd shade of grey at they moment, perhaps it will change colour as it grows out.

Now on to Cinnamon and Leap who were both wild born cubs brought to us in February 2008. As they grew they both had their problems, particularly Leap who had many injuries after being attacked by a dog. We have always wanted to see them both back in the wild and now we have taken a major step towards that end.

Since October 2009 we have been working to prepare them for life in the wild and to find a suitable site for their release. We have had lots of help from lots of people and as a result of all this effort Cinnamon and Leap have been moved to a beautiful location where they are currently housed in a temporary release pen.

They will stay there for the next few days and then we will open up their pen and allow them to come and go as they please for several weeks. We will continue to feed and care for them during this time but the idea is that one day they will go and will not return.

This "soft" release should enable them to practice hunting and get a little more physically fit with distant support from us.

We will be keeping the location to ourselves to give them as much privacy as possible and will update the blog with their progress.

Dasherdate/Scottish Wildcats

2010-01-28T18:55:00.005Z

Dasher continues to do very well. He is up and about and getting better every day. He is no longer using the stall and is living outside, though we have provided extra shelters and he has been seen using them.

Our new arrivals for 2010 are here at last, they are a pair of Scottish Wildcats. The male and female are both grade 1 cats which means they are pure in all respects and suitable for breeding.

One of the great challenges that this species is facing is that in wild they mate with domestic cats and produce hybrids thus "diluting" their genetic purity. Some researchers believe that they may only be between 200 and 400 pure Scottish Wildcats living in the wild today, making them a very rare animal indeed and critically endangered.

We are getting to know our pair (who are also getting to know each other) and will be naming them soon. At the moment they are settling in to their new quarters in part of the old quarry.

We've seen lots of wallaby tummy movement in the last few days which means that several of our females have joeys, we will probably start to see the youngsters themselves in 8 to 10 weeks.

Lottie, Harriet and dad Tamarisk are very energetic at the moment but when the playfighting and chasing are over Lottie still likes snuggling up to her mum and suckling for a few minutes before she nods off......ahhhh, so cute.

Dasherdate

2010-01-25T18:41:00.003Z

Just a quick note to say that Dasher continues to amaze us all and is doing very well.

He has been released from the stall and is free to come and go as he pleases.

His appetite is good and his wound is healing nicely although he does run out of energy quite quickly, especially when going up hill. We have put out a couple of small shelters so that he doesn't have to go very far before he finds one.

All marvellous news, the only thing is his name, Dasher, seems a little inappropriate at the moment, maybe we will think about that one later...

Dasher: an update

2010-01-20T19:29:00.002Z

Dasher returned from the vets on Monday a bit dazed and groggy after having his right rear leg removed and spent the night very quietly as you might expect.

On Tuesday he managed to get himself up a couple of times and although he was drinking lots we couldn't entice him to eat very much, not even his favourites (grapes and monkey nuts) seemed to be hitting the spot. During the evening he perked up a little and that has continued into Wednesday.

His appetite is not very good but we have discovered that he still enjoys lots of contact (rubbing and scratching) and squeaks if you stop too soon so we are able to keep him under close observation without worrying him at all.

His wound is healing well and he is getting around on his own in the small area we have confined him to. We're stocking up on grapes and nuts in the hope that we'll need them soon.

So far (not) so good

2010-01-18T17:33:00.003Z

Well, no doubt you have all had a tricky time of it during the past six weeks or so due to the extreme weather. No different here, we've had it bad and we're hoping its all behind us. Getting into work was the first hazard on several occasions; frozen roads, frozen padlocks, frozen gates. The list could go on indefinitely.

All of the otters have come through it without any major problems; they were given large quantities of extra bedding and up to a 50% increase in their food intake each day resulting in happy otters but a large dent in the food budget. We think Biggy and Smalley need a diet soon as they have been stealing some food from Libby, who, by the way is coming along very nicely indeed and will even come out when called for by a couple of the keepers.

Tor continues to be the happiest of creatures and it can be very uplifting when, having had a bit of a rubbishy day, you go into to feed him and the gang and he greets you like a long lost playmate; bringing toys and twigs to you to play 'tug of war' and 'fetch'. He is however, completely unaware of the effect he has on keepers when he leaps up to them to get their attention to play. (We hope he might learn to deal with the yells/screams etc one day). We aren't really that scared of him, the real problem is that he has to be the clumsiest cub ever and you never quite know where he's going to end up, or even whether he'll be the right way up! He puts me in mind of young puppies skidding and sliding around, tongues out and madly enthusiastic about everything. Especially food.

Lottie, Pluto, Kernow and Coady are all growing well and still in with their parents.

Some of you may have seen Jill (a British Otter) on your visits here; she had a very bad infection in February last year and recovered well after a very long convalescent period. She was a reclusive otter though and so we moved her away from public view in the late summer. Two weeks later we moved Tino in with her and the result is that she gave birth to one cub in late November. All three are doing fine and we hope to see the cub soon, although we are leaving them to their own devices at the moment.

Dasher, our tame Muntjac Deer had a very serious accident on the ice and broke one of this hind legs. Unfortunately the break was too serious to repair and his leg has been amputated. He is in the early stages of recovery and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he will pull through. He is now back from the vets (Castle Vets, Launceston - who have been great, thank you). At the moment he is in a straw covered stall so we can keep an eye on him for the next few days.

We are pleased that the Wallabies weren't too upset by the prolonged cold weather, we have even seen signs that at least two of them have joeys although we haven't actually seen the babies themselves. Its a very odd sight seeing wallabies in the snow, apparently quite content.

Lots and lots of trees have come down and we've plenty of chainsawing to do together with miscelleaneous renewalls and repairs. No rest for the wicked, eh?

End of open season update.

2009-11-30T19:24:00.004Z

We've closed again after a very busy half term. Usually we allow visitors to hand feed the Fallow Deer but we had to withdraw food from sale in the last week of October because they had decided it was time for their rut. Fallow are normally quite shy but can be a bit of a handful at this time of year. Anyway, the bucks managed to sort the pecking order out without too much of a kerfuffle (one broken antler is all) and now the herd is back to being one big happy family, and hopefully some of the does are with fawn.

Lottie (Harriet and Tam's cub) is doing very well and might be developing a bit of "attitude". She is very pushy (like her mum) and has taken to stealing her dad's food without fear of any retribution (because mum is on hand). She tries the same thing on with the keepers too and usually gets away with it (same reason). The three of them get on well (unless food is involved) and, apart from digging a huge hole and managing to collapse a 9 foot section of concreted water way, are well behaved.

Cinnamon and Leap continue to do well, although I do sometimes question their hunting skills. I have seen both of these otters hunt successfully, but the other day, after a large meal, they were rolling around in the water together when a drake landed in their pen. They gave chase, caught it quickly, and then let it go whilst they played with each other. The drake seized his chance and tried to make off, but as soon as he legged it they chased and caught him again, but, as before as soon as he was captured the two otters lost interest and started to play with each other. This happened once more before the duck worked out how how to escape from the two playful predators (i.e do it quietly and slowly) and flew off, apparently unscathed.

Biggy, Smalley, Tor and Libby are still all living together. Libby is exceptionally shy and needs very careful handling. It might be that Libby is the first agoraphobic otter that we have ever encountered; we are trying various strategies to overcome this and we are having some but not complete success. Tor is still stupidly cute but scarily strong. the other night (yes, in the dark) I was pottering around in their pen when he jumped onto my lap and started opening and closing his mouth very gently ("play with me") I took my cue and found his "octy" (a toy octopus he's had since he lived at home with us) and gave him a bit of a roll around with it and once he was satisfied that we were still close friends he let me get on with what I was doing. He is very strong, he isn't at all aggressive but I do worry that he might make a mistake that involves my fingers and his teeth......

Dasher our tame Muntjac continues to be the major criminal at the Otter Park; holding up members of staff for monkey nuts, squeezing through the barn door to burgle various food bins, and worst of all stalking staff until he gets his grapes!!

We are fighting the weather (has it been raining?) whilst we get on with winter maintenance and a brand new pen for some exciting new arrivals in the near future.

Overall things look very good considering the appalling weather; we've only lost a dozen or so large trees (time to sharpen the chainsaws) and a small landslip here and there. Lets hope it dries up soon.

Autumn arrives

2009-09-29T08:22:00.000+01:00

The weeks have flown by again so time for an update. Tor is doing really well; we had initially tried to get him accepted by our other hand reared otters as we had not been able to find him a play mate elsewhere in the country and he needed to have an otter to socialise with. One of the keepers would take Tor into the pen and supervise the introductions; Biggy and Smalley are so accepting and inquisitive and tried to play with him almost straight away. Cinnamon and Leap just ignored him and kept their distance. After several days of Tor being taken into the pen with a keeper to supervise the introductions Leap decided he was not acceptable and attacked him just a warning but enough for us to know it was not going to work out.

Plan B then was to separate Biggy and Smalley from Cinnamon and Leap as this would have to be done in the near future and house Tor with Biggy and Smalley. Tor moved into the pen first and Biggy and Smalley came a little quicker than anticipated! John put the box into the pen for them to explore and get used to before we caught them up but they were straight in so they were moved there and then!!

They have all settled well and do not appear to miss each other which is good as they have all been together since such a young age. Cinnamon and Leap still share a box at night and by the second morning Tor, Biggy and Smalley were all sharing the same box at night too. Tor has grown in confidence over the weeks and now he comes out for the feeds and the three otters played really well together so mission accomplished!

On 27^th August however we had another abandoned British Otter brought into us, Libby was very dehydrated, stressed, had an abscess on his hind leg and a badly damaged toe on his front left foot which meant he walked with a bad limp. On a good note his lab results came back clear which meant once he had been treated for the injuries and was feeding well he could mix with Biggy’s group. Libby was only about seven weeks old so still needed milk and was very aggressive towards the keepers so we wanted him to integrate with Biggy’s group as soon as possible. He is living in the pen with them now but is very reluctant to come out when the public are around but will sleep with the other otters. We hope that his confidence will continue to grow as time passes.

Harriet’s cub is nine weeks old now and has been spotted outside this week and even seen learning to swim with Harriet which is fantastic. Tamarisk is still kept firmly in his place but we hope as the weeks pass now he will be allowed to join in!

Carmen, Coady and Kernow are still thriving and have adapted well to not having Tino around, he went off site to take part in a breeding programme with one of our females, Jill in August.

William, Hilda and Pluto are a joy to watch when they are outside playing together. Pluto definitely takes after his Mother and is very vocal and pushy when it comes to food!

Our two young Bucks are getting more confident as the days pass and we are watching to see which one becomes the more dominant male. Little Dasher can still be seen around the centre and will stop to be made a fuss of and eat from your hand and has been spotted in the gift shop on several occasions last week!!

The weather has been delightful for September and our visitors are enjoying the warm weather. The leaves are starting to turn orange and brown, a sure sign that the open season is drawing to an end and that autumn is arriving.

Gold CHEFS Award for Mandy and Lin, cub for Harriet.

2009-08-23T18:56:00.003+01:00

On Monday 27th July at about 12.45pm Harriet gave birth to a single cub. She took us by surprise, giving no warning at all; we actually thought she and Tamarisk weren't getting on too well but that just shows how wrong we were! We don't interefere with British Otter cubs unless we have to so we don't know the sex of the new baby. It is four weeks old tomorrow and doing well. It has begun to change colour from silver to brown, starting at the head and gradually working backwards along the body. If all goes well its' eyes will open a week tomorrow and it will start exploring shortly afterwards.

On a subject very close to my heart (and to be honest, stomach) our tea room has been awarded a Gold CHEFS Award from Cornwall Council. This is in recognition of high standards of cleanliness, training, and use of healthy, local produce. We are one of the first tea rooms to receive the award (only two gold awards have been awarded so far in Cornwall since the new unitary authority took over). Mandy and Lin have worked extremely hard over the past few years to update and improve the tea room and we are very proud of them.

Hansel

2009-07-23T11:30:00.002+01:00

Hansel's antlers continued to give him trouble in the days following his accident. We expected them to fall off quite quickly but it soon became clear that that was not going to happen. On Tuesday we examined him and it was clear that his condition was very grave indeed; he hadn't broken the actual antlers but the pedicle below them (the pedicle is the part of his skull that supports the antlers).

He was put down later that evening.

We will miss this mischievious, handsome buck very much indeed.

New arrivals

2009-07-13T19:56:00.001+01:00

Firstly I would like to say thank you to the children of Coads Green Primary School who have named Carmen’s cubs for us. The smaller of the two (a female?) will be called Coady and the larger one (a male?) will be called Kernow. I’ve just been trying the names out with the cubs and they seem to like them already.

Since last writing (too long I know) we have had several new arrivals; two new Fallow Deer fawns, one now three weeks old and the other only a few days. Both are doing very well.

The same cannot be said for their father, Hansel. He has been growing what looked like a superb set of antlers although they were less than half grown and still covered in velvet. Alas no longer; on Saturday night he seems to have tried them out on something a lot bigger and tougher than his antlers were (at the early stages of growth antlers are quite fragile and only become useful weapons when the velvet has dropped off and the bone has had a chance to dry out). The result is that he has badly damaged both of them and they now dangle around the sides of his head and make him look like a miniature moose. They may now dry up and drop off or continue to grow in a deformed shape, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s not uncommon for young bucks to do this and they soon learn not to mess with their antlers until they are properly grown. Hopefully he has learnt his lesson.

Sonny (one of our Asian Short Clawed bitches) continues to put on weight and appear pregnant but as yet no babies have appeared. She is eleven years old and we are a bit worried that this, being her first (and rather surprising) pregnancy, will be complicated. We are watching her carefully and crossing our fingers for her.

On Friday 26^th June we took a phone call early in the morning; a British Otter cub had been found a few miles from us near a village called Week St. Mary. We went to see what we could do and when we arrived saw a very small, thin and sorry looking little male cub. His eyes were full of dried mucus and barely open. We guessed his age at just over 5 weeks. We had taken our first aid kit with us and gave him some fluids there and then. His eyes immediately began to weep and in less than a minute he was able to open them properly and look back at us with deep blue, frightened eyes. He was down but not out.

Tor, as we have named him, was obviously dehydrated and took fluids readily. He had been found high on a hill with no obvious water course nearby and no explanation as to why he was there.

We took him home and weighed him, 700 grams, a real lightweight. Over the next few days his life really did hang in the balance. Visits to the vet confirmed he had various infections and muscular difficulties on his right side. He was fed from a syringe every hour and a half, day and night. Some days were good and some bad as his body fought for survival.

Twelve days after taking him in he appeared a little brighter than usual and since then he has forged ahead really well. He still has some problems to overcome and he isn’t out of the woods yet but we are beginning to get just the tiniest bit more optimistic. Weaning has begun and that means much longer periods between feeds (thank goodness). We have also introduced him to water which he seems to like as long as it’s nice and warm and only an inch deep. He might be an otter but he’s certainly not very aquatic yet!

Thanks to Nicola and Richard for finding Tor and doing something about it in time to save him.

The Royal Cornwall Show

2009-06-09T19:10:00.005+01:00

When Mandy and I took over this park in 2006 some of our friends thought we were going mad as it was such a change to our previous way of life. Perhaps they were right and maybe we're going even madder because a few weeks ago we were invited to take some of our otters to the Royal Cornwall Show, a huge three day event with all sorts of country pursuits and activities going on.

We were provided with a tent only 30 yards from a beautiful fishing lake in the Countryside area along with an outside area in which to build a portable pen.

Barry, one of our keepers, and I spent some time designing and building a portable pen that would keep the otters in and people, dogs etc. out. A few days before the event we went to the site and built the pen, which included a large bath for the otters to plunge in as they wanted.

Mandy and I had already chosen the otters who were to accompany us; Biggy and Smalley, because of their bold nature. Taking British Otters to a show like this might be too much for them, with all the noises and sights. British Otters also need an awful lot more security as they are much bigger and more athletic than their Asian cousins.

On the Wednesday evening before the show we arrived on site with our boys. We showed them round and let them have a little swim before putting them to bed at 10pm. They were good as gold. Straight to sleep and no going to the loo in the night (much appreciated when we were sleeping only 2 feet from them). They woke up at 630am and were bright and confident.

They spent all day playing with a keeper, sleeping on a keeper or getting a keeper as wet as could be.

They took no time at all to get used to the hubbub of the show, the shooting, the horses and cattle moving around and the tannoy descriptions of the various events that went on from dawn 'til dusk.

By evening they were quite tired so we put them to bed early and they slept through just like the night before.

When they had been young they had been toilet trained, we didn't expect them to remember it but to our amazement they did! Just one small accident in nearly four full days.

Their good behaviour continued throughout and they were the stars of the show (in my opinion anyway).

On the Saturday evening we returned with them to the park and reintroduced them to Leap and Cinnamon. This can be tricky as even after short absences some otters don't seem to recognise one another but not in this case. They seemed genuinely pleased to see each other and were all soon rolling gently with on another in the water, even ignoring the food we had taken down for them.

All in all it was a great experience for us, and them too. The seemed to enjoy the change and the additional attention. The only real drawback was that they didn't have an otter policy in the beer tent so we couldn't take them in (joking!).

All of the otters here are fine. Carmen's cub are a joy to watch now that they can swim well and are confident enough to come out when the public are there.

We have been less succesful with our birds of prey though with no chicks as yet from any of them although some are still sitting.

Its all go so I'd better get back to it while its light.

Thanks to all who helped us at the Royal Cornwall and hope to see some of you at the Launceston Show if all goes to plan.

May already?

2009-05-05T19:28:00.001+01:00

Well it’s May already and I don’t know where the last few weeks have gone we’ve been so busy.

Firstly Carmen; everything is fine with her, the cubs and Tino. The cubs are now just over ten weeks old and are getting to be reasonably good swimmers. We saw one of their first lessons about 10 days ago and it went something like this: Carmen emerged from the holt with one cub and they made their way to the waters edge. Carmen slipped gently into the water but the cub wouldn’t follow. She called quietly to it, rolled onto her side and gently tried to encourage it into the water but the cub wouldn’t budge. Time for a change of tack and Carmen decided to grab the cub by its ear and drag it into the water. The cub panicked and was splashing a lot with its front paws in a poor effort at a doggy paddle and headed straight back to the bank. Carmen positioned herself between the cub and the bank and each time it got close she dragged it back into deeper water. After about 2 minutes the cub was exhausted and its coat was waterlogged; it gave up and began to sink into the water. But ever attentive mum slipped under the water and emerged with the cub clinging to her back. She swam around like this for a minute and then took her baby to the bank where the poor bedraggled little thing made for the holt. This was then repeated with the second cub.

Thankfully since then things have improved and we see Carmen swimming with one cub several times a day but we haven’t yet seen her with both cubs in the water at the same time. Tino is taking all this in his stride. He doesn’t take part in any swimming lessons as far as we know but we have seen him playing with his cubs in a very gentle and caring way. Mind you, with Carmen around he wouldn’t do anything else would he?

It’s good news all round at the moment with our birds of prey. Firstly the Little Owls and the Kestrels. Both are fairly new additions to the park and have obviously decided they like it here, as both pairs of birds have laid eggs in the last couple weeks. The Little Owl was the first to lay, but seemed to be a bit confused about what she should do once she had laid an egg. She laid her egg in one box and then started sitting in another box. We decided to help her out and moved the egg underneath her, but she pushed it in front of her and refused point blank to sit on it, so we took the egg out and have put it in the incubator to see what will become of it. It may be that she’s very intelligent and knows the egg won’t hatch or that there is something wrong with it, so has decided not to waste any energy sitting. We will just have to wait and see. Since the first egg she has laid a second and for the moment we are leaving it with her to see if she will look after it herself.

The Kestrels have also laid two eggs. We went and fed them yesterday and the female hadn’t been out flying around as she usually is in the day, so we had a check around the aviary to make sure she was okay and she was sitting on two bright orange eggs. She seems to know what she is doing and has been getting off the nest to get some food and then straight back on it, so hopefully we will have some new chicks in the next few weeks.

Along with the Little owls and Kestrels a couple of our longer term residents have also started laying eggs, the Bengal Eagle Owls and the Snowy Owls.

The Snowy Owls have had bad luck with their chick rearing in the past, the main reason being that the female seems to find her offspring very tasty! Last year they had three eggs and sure enough mum ate all three. We have now learnt from our mistakes and formed a plan of action for them. Basically, when the first egg hatches we are going to try and rear it ourselves and see if the Snowy Owl will rear any that are left. That way hopefully we will have some survivors. So far this year she has laid five eggs, the first two ended up in a puddle after some heavy rain and she decided to leave them, so we have put the eggs into our incubator,
(but we’re not very hopeful), then the third egg she laid in a scrape right at the front of her aviary, at the most downhill point she could get, so we took it away for fear of another drowned scrape. She has now laid two more eggs at the highest point in her aviary and is sitting on them. We are bit more hopeful about these and it would seem that they are looking after them very well, as last night we saw for the first time the male sitting on the nest whilst the female got off to get some food. Fingers crossed!

Lastly we have the Bengal Eagle Owls who are sitting on two eggs, she has laid eggs in the winter but then leaves them and they go cold. So far she has been sitting on these for a week or two now, so hopefully something will happen here as well.

All of our animals seem to be having a baby boomer of a year, as well as the owls, we have lots of ducklings at the moment. Most of our eggs in the incubator have hatched this year. We let six of our bigger ducklings out into the rest of the park last week, they seem to have found their way round fairly well but still like the company of the other ducklings, as they tend to hang around their old duck run in the mornings and evenings. We have another twelve ducklings inside that are still a bit too small to go outside and a few eggs left to hatch in the incubator.

Outside we have a Muscovy duck with thirteen ducklings, they don’t all appear to be hers, we think she has some Mallards and Aylesburys as well and was obviously so good at sitting on the nest, the other ducks have decided to let her be super mum and look after all of them.

Some of our geese seem to be getting into the spirit of things as well. Our Barnacle geese are sitting on the island and for the last couple of years have had two successful clutches.

Unfortunately our Chinese Fawn Goose has decided to copy the Barnacle Geese and would like some babies of her own. She made a beautiful nest and sat for a very long time, so we thought something exciting would happen. However, as time went on and nothing was happening we decided to go and have a look ourselves. We found one egg, which had been there so long and it was rotten, so we threw that one away and hoped she would resume normal life, as she has been so good, she hadn’t been coming off her nest for any food or anything. However, she still persists in sitting on her nest, but now gets off every morning and evening for food. Whether or not she has laid any more eggs we don’t know, but time will tell.

As well as birds we have seen some young Muntjac deer running around. We have one that looks a few months old and another one that is living with mum and dad behind that barn that looks only a few weeks old, as it still has all of its spots.

Dasher our hand reared Muntjac fawn has been let out into the park, after he had a run in with his aviary and received a couple of small cuts. We then decided to let him run around the rest of the park and would try calling him for his milk in the mornings and evenings. It does work, he now tends to have his milk once a day but as soon as he hears the word milk he appears right by your side. He seems to be integrating very well with the other deer and has made good friends with the youngest Muntjac that we have seen, as they running around, playing together the other day.

That’s all for now,

Carmen- a quick update

2009-03-31T19:48:00.002+01:00

Carmen's twin cubs are now 5 and a half weeks old and doing very well. They opened their eyes last Sunday at 37 days old; a couple of days late but none the worse for it. She appears to have a minor problem with lactation again and looks a little swollen but for the moment we have decided not to interfere. Remember, we open tomorrow but you won't see these cubs for a little while yet as they are shy and will probably only come when its very quiet.

Carmen update

2009-03-24T19:07:00.003Z

During the last week Carmen has been in a very aggressive and protective state of mind. poor Tino has been very patient and though he has been attacked a number of times he has never retaliated. On more than occasion Carmen has been seen in the water with a cub in her mouth or between her legs. The water is very cold (I speak from experience) and the cubs aren't anywhere near being able to cope with it. Whether she is a poor mum or is trying to wash or cool her babies we don't yet know.

However, in the last two or three days Carmen has been much more like her old self and certainly much more relaxed than of late; this morning (Tuesday 24th March) she was so relaxed that I was able to get a quick peek into her holt and see what was in there. Two healthy looking cubs that's what!

Carmen seems to be getting the hang of things, the cubs are four weeks and four days old today. Their eyes should be open by this weekend

More new arrivals

2009-03-15T09:38:00.003Z

Well its taken several years and there have been some false starts but at last Carmen has had a litter of cubs and is taking good care of them.

Carmen has had litters before but none of her cubs has ever lived beyond three days but on Friday 20th February at tea time she gave birth to at least two cubs and today they are 3 weeks and two days old and we are really hopeful that she will continue to care for them.

After previous births Carmen became distressed and moved her cubs from one location to another, often through water, resulting in their death. The cause of the distress was not easy to identify and may have had multiple causes.

This time we decided on a different approach; first of all we introduced her to a new mate, Tino, an unproven male, in November 2008. He has a rather pushy character and is quite a contrast to Carmen, who can be quite retiring. We then gave them separate holts some distance apart so that they could get away from each other easily and left them to their own devices.
When we thought that Carmen was pregnant we decided to leave Tino in the same enclosure, a tactic that has worked before with William and Hilda (and resulted in the birth of Pluto in October last year). Normally we would remove the dog otter prior to birth so that his presence doesn't upset the expectant mother.

Carmen seems to be reassured by Tino's presence. She often seeks him out and if she can't find him she will pop her head into his holt and whistle for him (four sharp blasts usually!) and out he comes. They greet each other with a few sniffs and a quick play and once she is happy that he is there she goes about the business of feeding etc. Once or twice since the birth he has ventured a little too close to her holt while she has been some distance away resulting in a fiery but brief attack from her. He hasn't suffered any visible injuries so far because she doesn't drive her attack home, its more a defensive display to remind him to keep his distance unless she is there right beside him. When she is with him he has been seen looking into her holt and hasn't received any rebuke so it appears that he can approach with permission and under escort. Tino has become very subordinate and we haven't seen any aggressive behaviour from him at all.

On Saturday 14th March we did have a few nervous moments when Carmen was seen carrying one cub around the pen with another in her tunnel. She was obviously agitated but after a few minutes she returned them to the holt. That's the only time we had seen the cubs since the afternoon they were born. We are still worried about upsetting Carmen and are giving her a wide berth whenever possible. Although we haven't seen the cubs we know they are still there because we can hear them. We sometimes use a small radio transmitter strapped to the holt to eavesdrop on new mothers but there's no need for that in this case because the cubs scream like mad when Carmen feeds or toilets them.

The next two weeks are very important; if the cubs get to five weeks old and their eyes open they have a good chance of survival in the longer term, so fingers (and everything else) crossed.

Pluto continues to be the cutest thing ever; I've just seen William (his dad) lying on his back and Pluto lying on top of him attacking him playfully. Magic.

On a sad note Zephyr, our Asian Short Clawed Otter and head of the Family group, died in her sleep last Tuesday. She was 13 years and 4 months old and is sadly missed.

The snow arrives in Cornwall!

2009-02-09T14:06:00.000Z

Like most of the country this week we have had snow, it makes the journey to work a challenge but we obviously have to get in to feed and care for the animals.
It looks beautiful but not all the animals are fond of it, the British Otters love the snow and ice and enjoy rolling around in it and swimming in the freezing water. The Asian Short Clawed otters are not as keen and seem to get back inside as soon as they have finished their food. The hand reared cubs enjoyed the snowballs we made for them but again Biggy and Smalley not as keen with Biggy wanting to be picked up off the snow for a warm cuddle!

We have had a few more surprises this week we were amazed to see a young Joey in its mothers pouch looking out onto the freezing world around him. It’s definitely in the best place in these conditions.

On Thursday the snow had disappeared so we prepared to catch up on some of the jobs that the weather had disrupted. On the routine morning inspection I came across a large carp in the waterway at the edge of the waterfowl lake. On closer inspection it had been recently killed and I think I disturbed the diner, certainly must have been quite a large animal to catch it and drag it out of the water!
We gave it to the Asian Short Clawed family and it kept them quiet and busy for the rest of the day.

Dasher the Muntjac deer is continuing to do well at home, he is weaning now and growing too.

Hilda, William and their cub, who we have decided to call Pluto, continue to do well, we have seen them all sharing a box and John spotted William and Hilda coming out of one box in the afternoon and the cub came out of the other so they seem very relaxed with each other. The same cannot be said for Hilda’s attitude to her keepers! We went in on Thursday to cement the side of their pond as it has been leaking, we timed it so that they would be resting after their breakfast. The otters usually have a look to see what you are up to and then leave us to it but we always go in pairs in case they object to our presence. We have been keeping out of William and Hilda’s pen as much as possible so that we do not disturb them or cause unnecessary stress.
William was the first one out and he just swam and walked around us not really worried by our presence. Then Hilda who had been watching from her tunnel decided we were probably getting too near to the box where the cub was tucked up. She was out swimming around, charging at us, hissing and spitting the whole time. John was cementing and Sonia and I were on watch armed with brooms to keep the otters out of the way if they do get too curious. Hilda made a charge for my broom and bit it and pulled it straight out of my hands, she is so feisty. I think she got a shock too as she retreated whilst I retrieved my broom. We quickly finished the job as we did not want to upset her any more.
Pluto is getting much bolder and will come out and wait for his food with William and Hilda; yesterday tea time it was at the gate growling at me just as his Mum does!

We hope the snow will not be around for much longer as we have so many jobs left to and less than eight weeks to complete them in.

Herons and Buzzards

2009-01-23T15:47:00.000Z

Well, we’ve had an extraordinary couple of days here. Firstly, yesterday (Thursday 22 January) Mandy was feeding the otters at tea time and saw William, Hilda and their cub (now about 12 weeks old) playing together in a very gentle, caring way. William is such a good dad he even allows the cub to take food from him when Hilda won’t give hers up. As we still don’t have any decent pictures of the cub Mandy went to the barn to get the camera and see if she could capture the moment.

Now, those of you who are familiar with our site will know that we have around 3 herons which, although wild can be seen regularly, usually about tea time when they scavenge the otters left-overs.

When Mandy returned to the pen she saw that Hilda had attacked a heron that had landed nearby and was in the process of killing it.

When otters and herons normally meet there is usually a kind of stand off, they do not attack each other as they have respect for the strength and weaponry of their opponent. After a few minutes one of them will become bored and move off and the other will claim the prize which is food.

For them to fight is a very rare event indeed and we can only think that Hilda saw the heron as a threat to her cub and decided to attack and kill it. The whole thing was over very quickly and the heron was almost certainly doomed from the first seconds of the attack but when William joined in its fate was sealed.

The otters appear to be uninjured even though the heron tried to stab with its beak several times.

Now this is a bit of a gory incident but it is nature in action and possibly uniquely Mandy caught a substantial amount of it on film. We have posted it on Youtube under the title ‘Heron takes on an otter and loses’. It may not be suitable viewing for the faint hearted.

Now on to the next incident; this morning (Friday 23rd January) Denis and I were at work and as I walked by our Bengal Eagle Owls I noticed something odd, it appeared that another bird of prey was in there aviary with them!

I called Denis and together we entered the aviary and saw a juvenile Buzzard had somehow squeezed through the wire mesh, probably to steal a free meal. He found that it’s much easier to get in when no-one is looking than it is to get out when you are being attacked by two Bengal Eagle Owls!

Fortunately none of the birds looked injured and it only took a couple of minutes to get the Bengals into their shed and then catch the terrified Buzzard by gently covering it with my coat. Once caught we took it to a woodland shelter and gave it a quick once over, no injuries but a big dent in his pride was all the experience had cost him, lucky boy. We released him and after a moment or two to gather himself he flew into a tree where he spent 20 minutes preening before disappearing further into the woods. A very lucky Buzzard indeed.

Otters on You tube

2009-01-12T11:34:00.003Z

We have posted a short film of Biggy, Smalley, Leap and Cinnamon on You tube under the title "Eggstatic otters". It shows them in the first week of January 2009 just messing around really. We hope you like it..

Despite the recent freeze, associated burst pipes etc all the animals are fine. One of our hens shocked us (and maybe Mother Nature) by hatching out six chicks on 4th January; and no this is not a mollycoddled bird, this is an outdoor girl. To date they are all doing fine despite her refusal to accept our offers of heat and extra food.

We have also spotted some unusual movement in one of the wallabys' pouches which indicates that she either has a very bad tum or far more likely, she has a small joey in there.

Hildas' cub continues to do well but is very camera shy. We often see the three of them (William, Hilda and cub) playing together but as soon as I get get my camera out the cub goes in. I will keep trying though, and will post some pictures as soon as I have them.

An unexpected arrival

2008-12-30T13:16:00.001Z

Well, what a beautiful winter we are having aren’t we? Lots of freezing cold days with no chance of idling or you’ll freeze to death in a flash! Amazing how no-one wants to sit down for very long while it’s this cold isn’t it?

One of our first big jobs recently was clearing our little island of all of the tree and scrub growth that has been allowed to develop in the last few years. A half day of chain-sawing and cutting was all it took, great we thought, but we hadn’t taken into consideration just how much mess we’d make. It took four days to drag it off the island using the boat and truck and another few days to cut it up and burn it. This was not helped by the frozen pond, the ice was too thin to risk walking on it but our little flat bottomed dingy was too light (even with me in it) to break through it. The result was that we ended up using the dingy as a very large skate, great for wasting time enjoying yourself with little pushes here and there, but not so good for getting things done.

Our bridge building in the Marsh Lake is also progressing very well. About sixty feet of new walkway has now been built and that only (only???) leaves us about two hundred feet of footpath to make a start on, lets hope the weather holds eh?

All of the animals seem to be getting used to our winter routine and are very relaxed at the moment. Hansel (our Fallow buck) leads the way, approaching anyone who he thinks might give him some food or attention. If you haven’t got any of the former and don’t have time for the latter you’d better watch out because he has developed a habit of gently head butting you if you ignore him;- don’t let him catch you on the river bank!

Hilda’s cub (who we are thinking of calling Darcy but haven’t quite decided yet) is doing very well indeed. We don’t know its sex yet as Hilda is very protective and won’t let me have a look. It is very dark coloured and very big (one of Williams’ traits). Its eyes opened on the 30th November and that is consistent with a birthday of 26th October. I go in to say hello most days and although most of the time I can get nice and close without causing any stress to any of them I can’t get quite close enough to lay on hands and sex it without scaring them (and me!). We are starting to see it out during the day every now and then but more regularly at dusk when we have seen it being dragged into the pond for a three second dip and then being returned to the holt under duress.

William is still in the same pen as Hilda and the cub and seems to be getting used to things. His place in the current circumstances is confusing to both him and us however. Sometimes he is allowed in with the cub unsupervised and that seems to go well, other times he is attacked by Hilda (apparently just for breathing) and on one occasion we saw him being attacked (albeit very briefly) by the cub! Did he try to defend himself? No he didn’t, he legged it while Hilda looked on nonplussed! Very odd.

On Sunday 14th December, a bright, dry, cold day Mandy and I arrived for work as usual. As we went about our morning jobs we heard an unusual call, something between a blackbird’s alarm call and a high pitched childish scream. We heard it every few minutes but couldn’t locate or identify the source. After a bit of searching we found a dead Muntjac doe who looked as though she had died very recently. We concentrated out efforts near to her and after a couple of minutes Mandy found the source of the peculiar sound under a bush; a new born Muntjac fawn, umbilical cord still attached, very cold and very hungry. He was about 5 inches tall and one of the tiniest, cutest things I have ever seen. Straight into my jacket pocket then home and under a heat lamp. Dasher (yes, Dasher, on the insistence of our children) is now a couple of weeks old and doing well. He is playful and extremely fast when he doesn’t want to be caught. He lives with us at home and will continue to do so until the weather warms up. He lies quietly in his box until it approaches feeding time. As soon as he sees his bottle he is up; a big stretch and then he trots over to you and has his meal. After that its playtime, followed by a little exploring (he has access to most of the house but can’t do stairs yet). After an hour or so that’s it, he either takes himself back to his box or settles under the rocking chair or his favourite radiator. Before you ask, no he doesn’t mess everywhere, he’s got nice manners and waits to be stimulated before going to the toilet. Very civilised.

Happy New Year.

A brief note on Hilda

2008-11-25T18:08:00.002Z

Hilda and her cub continue to do well. We've been in with her several times now and she is now confident enough to let Mandy and I in the pen with them and approach her holt without getting into a panic or being aggressive towards us. She is eating well and looks to be in very good condition although I would expect a slight deterioration in her physical well being in the next week or two as the cub becomes more demanding on her. The cubs' coat is turning brown and it is beginning to look like a small version of its mum. It is around ten inches long (a guess, we aren't handling it at the moment) and its eyes are still closed; we expect them to open in ten to fourteen days when it reaches five weeks old. As you can see from the photo it isn't easy to gather information at this stage.

William is still in the pen with Hilda but has been using a separate holt for the past few weeks. He has been curious about her and her holt but hadn't dared to venture too close in case she attacked him. However, we've seen him coming out of her holt on several occasions in the last few days. On one instance she was outside the holt waiting to be fed and as we approached we saw him come out of her holt. We checked straight away and everything was fine but we didn't expect her to allow him access at such an early stage. I don't know of any examples of dog otters harming their cubs but it still makes us rather nervous. It may be that the recent cold spell has driven them together for warmth. If so, let's hope it warms up soon.

Posted by the otter Keeper.

Closed...

2008-11-17T19:33:00.000Z

Another open season finishes, each year seems to go by even more quickly than the last. The weather was good over half term bringing the visitors in which was great to see before we close for the winter months.

We hope as we are sure you do that next year will be a lot drier than the wet summer we had this year!

Well the “closed season” started off in a very exciting way for us as Hilda our three year old British Otter has given birth to one cub. She had not been out for a few days although we knew she was in her box. So on Monday morning John had a peek just to check that all was well with her and had a glimpse of a small grey and brown cub. He immediately put the lid down as we did not want to upset them.
We have increased her food and moved the food box nearer the gate so that we will disturb them as little as possible. She has caught us all by surprise and William is still living in the pen although we had noticed he had been evicted from the main box and is in the other one in the enclosure. We have deliberated whether or not to remove him but feel that it may upset Hilda more if we start catching him up and she is a very feisty character and is definitely more dominant than poor William who has obviously been told to keep well away!

We know the cub is less than two weeks old as we cleaned out the boxes on the 23rd October.
It is early days so we have to keep our fingers crossed that all continues well for Hilda and her cub, we will keep you updated as things progress.

Biggy, Smalley, Cinnamon and Leap continue to do well and we are making sure that we still go in with them each day as they enjoy the interaction with the keepers almost as much as we do!
They were being a bit of a nuisance yesterday as we were changing the water in their pen and they insist on getting involved in whatever we are trying to do so everything takes a lot longer than with any of the otters at the centre.

Hansel our young buck has been trying to take control of the does as the rutting season is in full swing, he barks at them and tries to boss them around but does not have enough experience for the older ones to take him seriously.
We are settling into the new winter routine and drawing up the list of jobs to be done so we will not be idle over the months.

We will keep you updated on the centre and in particular the cubs over the next few months.

Posted by Mandy

Autumn Approaches

2008-10-13T18:56:00.001+01:00

It’s getting to that time of year now where everything is starting to wind down. Not only with the amount of visitors but our animals seem to be calming down as well.

We seem to be seeing a bit more of our wallabies at the moment and they appear to be getting increasingly relaxed around us. Once upon a time they would have been quite happily let you get within a few feet of them and then would have hopped off. Now however, they will quite happily stay put on the pathways and let you walk past without giving you so much as a second glance.

The otters are also being quite lazy at the moment amd it is much more of an effort trying to get them to come out at feeding times. William and Hilda are the only two otters that have an excuse of being lazy at the moment, as they seem to be concentrating on the future of the species as we have actually seen them mating in the past week, so fingers crossed there.

The cubs have also been a lot calmer than usual, with Biggy and Smally more interested in having cuddles than running around and getting excited, Cinnamon and Leap have also been getting a lot closer to the keepers over the past couple of weeks with Cinnmaon coming over for more and more cuddles and Leap will sit quite happily next to the keepers whilst munching on her food.
The only animals that seem to be the exception regarding laziness are the waterfowl. All of the ducks and geese have been very noisy lately indeed. In particular the Chinese Fawn Geese seem to be making the most noise and spread themselves out all over the place, so no matter where you are they still seem to be getting under your feet.

The Fallow deer seem to be adjusting to Nigels’ demise quite well and although they are understandably a bit wary of new things they are still coming down to feed out of peoples’ hands. Our next task is regarding the Fallow deer is to try and sex the three fawns, however at the moment as soon as they realise they are being watched they decide to hide themselves away.

Posted by Sonia

Some sad news.

2008-09-18T18:22:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately since the last time a blog was written we have had some sad days regarding our animals. The worst day concerns Nigel our fallow deer buck. Unfortunately he has been getting on in years -15 years old and over the last few weeks we have noticed him getting slower and being quite shaky on his back legs. Regrettably we then had to make the decision to have him put down. This was a very sad day for all and I’m sure many tears were shed by the staff as he had become such a well known and friendly part of our fallow deer herd. However it was in his best interests, as it was a case of having to be cruel to be kind and not letting him suffer.

Just before this we also had the death of a wallaby. We think this was another case of old age and the wallaby died a natural death.

As well as old age being responsible for these two deaths we have also lost some young birds. One of the guinea fowl chicks died leaving just one. The one that was left is doing ok and seems to be perfectly healthy and we are unclear as to why the other one died. Also the peachicks that we had have also all died. We never seem to be very lucky with our peachicks, it could be because the parents don’t pass enough of the right genes on to their youngsters, however we are not 100% sure why.

On to some happier news and better days…….

As you may recall, the last time this was written we had had some extremely bad weather and quite a bit of damage in the park resulting from this. Whilst the weather since hasn’t been brilliant we haven’t had any repeats of the floods in such a big scale and all of the repairs that were needed have been successful.

The drier weather also means that we have managed to get on with putting together our new otter pen, which is now nearly complete except for a few minor touches. This means that we can now have a swap around with some of our otters. This will give them all a change of scenery and maybe address a few issues between them, for example: Honey is still as greedy as ever and continues to pinch mum’s (Harriett’s) food if she can, so no doubt Harriett will be pleased to get her food back to herself and Honey will have to learn how to stand on her own two feet a bit more rather than relying on her mum who spoils her as much as possible.

Tino and Tamarisk may also be glad to have a break from each other as they do play rather enthusiastically, which means they do get along well but also tend to cause each other minor injuries every now and again so they might be grateful for the opportunity to calm down and relax a bit.

Carmen who has spent her months being back at the park on her own may get the opportunity to have some company and see if she can impress a male with her feminine ottery charms.

William and Hilda might be glad of a change, as they get on well together and are very relaxed in each others company but they appear to be so relaxed with each other that they can quite easily get through the day ignoring each other, with the result that so far we haven’t yet had any cubs.

Finally the cubs, Biggy, Smalley, Cinnamon and Leap. They all get on very well and can be seen daily playing, eating and sleeping together. However whilst Biggy and Smalley have nearly reached their full adult size, Cinnamon and Leap have still got quite a way to go and therefore could do some damage accidentally when playing with Biggy and Smalley or simply British Otters like to live on their own or in pairs, not in family groups like the Asian Short Clawed Otters, so as they get older they may decide that four is a much too big a group and they no longer want to live with Biggy and Smalley. So before any accidental injuries or ill feelings occur we will split them up so that Biggy and Smalley have each other and Cinnamon and Leap have each other.

Overall I think all of the British Otters will appreciate the change as naturally they don’t stay with each other for long and will encounter new things, so this will give them the opportunity to experience some new scenery, new smells and new company.

For the time being we have come to a halt on all of the young animals at the park, for example, the waterfowl, deer and owls have all had their breeding seasons, however we never know what might happen with the otters! . The rest of the park is abundant in waterfowl after all of the new additions that have joined it this year. The fawns and joeys are all continuing to do well and are gaining in confidence. The cubs are all continuing to be bundles of fun, Biggy tries to get up to as much mischief as possible and Smalley still enjoys playing in his own little world and playing catch with Cinnamon or Leaps tail. Cinnamon has become much more cuddly, now she’s started having cuddles I think she’s realised she’s onto a good thing and isn’t afraid of asking for one - which can be quite scary for the keepers! Leap has also gained in confidence enormously and is seen a lot more joining in at playtimes and isn’t worried anymore by the keeper being there.

The adult animals are all looking good at the moment as well, particularly as they have all completely finished moulting and are in prime condition - this is particularly noticeable in the golden pheasant and Korulah which were both looking particularly shabby earlier on in the year.

We still haven’t seen any sightings of the barn owl chicks that we released a couple of months ago, however they are occasionally stopping by for some food which we are still leaving out for them, so it appears that they are doing well.

We had the BBC here a couple of weeks ago filming Harriett and Honey for a Cornwall edition of Escape to the Country, look out for that on TV in December.

Karullah our Bengal eagle owl decided to get up to some mischief a couple of weeks ago, when she decided to explore the big wide world for herself!

Every morning she gets brought out of her aviary and taken to her perch at the front of the park so that people can get a close look at her and she can have a change of scenery and watch everything that's going on or just be plain lazy and lie in the sun. Sometimes we let her fly from our gloved hand to her perch. We do this a few feet away from her perch, in a straight line, so that she can see where she's got to go. This gives her a chance to stretch her wings and do something a bit different. On occassions she has been known to overshoot her perch slightly, usually landing outside the tearoom (and once on the tearoom roof!), however she then normally flies back to her perch from a different angle or waits patiently to be picked up.

However, this particular morning that we decided to let her fly to her perch she decided she wanted to explore. No sooner was she off the glove and she flew straight up into the air and off into the distance. We then got quite worried and went to look for her. The day went on and there was still no sign of her. By nightfall we were obviously very concerned and hoped that she might fly back to her aviary at some point in the night, as thats the place she can call home. Everyone went home that evening very worried about her and our worries were heightened even more by the fact that that evening we had torrential rain and thunder and lightening. Could things really be any worse for poor karullah?

The next day we went back to have another look and we still couldn't find her. By the second afternoon we were beginning to wonder if we would see her again. However our luck changed and at about 6-7pm she was found sitting in the car park, competely dry and quite calm. She gladly got back onto the keepers arm and once checked over to make sure she was ok, she went straight back to her aviary for a late tea. She didn't seem at all upset by her venture and was acting like she had had a perfectly normal day.

We were extremely relieved and happy to get her back and needless to say she wont be flying free to her perch again.

So, that’s about it for now but don’t forget to look out for us on TV in December.

Written by Sonia.

Wet again

2008-08-19T20:21:00.002+01:00

Well what a time we've had over the last week at the otter park. As any of you will know that have visited Cornwall this Summer we have had our share of rain and more! Last week in particular was very bad for the park. It all started on Wednesday morning, we had had a lot of rain the previous night and were slightly apprehensive as to what the park might be like the next day. However, upon arrival it didn't seem too bad and initial thoughts were that we may have to open half an hour later just to make sure everything was okay. However between 10am-11am things got worse, with the rain coming down in torrents and all the water that had been cleared originally started building up again extremely quickly. With the water level building up the park and the staff were finding it hard to control and pretty soon the bridges started flooding, the stream had broken its banks, the footpath was flooded and a rip current began in front of Tino and Tamarisks' pen quickly expanding from 4 foot wide to 20 foot wide. Water was starting to take over the place at an alarming rate. The cubs pen is about 4 feet higher than the stream and even that started flooding. This was quite worrying, as the water started rising and only a small amount of land was visible in their pen, however they were all very sensible and stayed inside, apart from Biggy who thought it was all good fun! This was just the start of our problems however, as the rip current that had started at Tino and Tamarisks' pen had become so fierce that it took down two sections of the fence surrounding their pen which was soon under 2 feet of water. Fortunately Tino and Tamarisk slept right through it so there were no attempted escapes. Finally the whole site was completely flooded, the water on the footpath became waist deep and the waterfowl lake, marsh lake and the main river outside the park all became one, so that it was impossible to tell them apart.. The end result was that the park couldn't open and all of the staff from the tearoom, shop and outside spent the rest of the day in waders trying to repair all of the damage that had been done and stop any more from occurring. All in all it was a very disheartening day and definitely not something you expect to happen in the middle of the summer.

Although that Wednesday was particularly bad and repairs were still being carried out for the rest of the week, as more damage had been found to the fences, it hasn't all been bad news and the animals are all doing well.

Nigel's looking much more like his usual self with both antlers pretty much fully grown and all of his velvet is starting to dry up. This means he will soon be rubbing his antlers up against the trees as they will be starting to itch and irritate him. Then once he's got rid of all of that velvet he will have two proper antlers and can start strutting his stuff for all the does. He has been putting his current antlers to use though, as he is the main suspect in repeated damages to equipment, such as various dents and holes, this makes us wonder how long our animal feed bins for the public will last, once he realises he can have a continuous supply of food by keep knocking them onto the floor.

The fallow deer fawns are also doing well. They have been looked after brilliantly by their mums and the rest of the herd and it appears they have been learning from them all, as they are now starting to build in confidence and are getting closer to members of the public, no doubt realising that those deer that are slightly braver (including Hansel our young buck) get extra helpings of food each time they get close to the public as they will gladly eat out of peoples hands. I wonder how long it will take the young fawns to follow in their greedy elders footsteps?

Whilst the weather hasn't been brilliant we have managed to let three of the ducklings out into the rest of the park, that had previously hatched from the incubator. They are finding their way round and are doing well. However it seems that they are missing their companions inside, as we still have seven ducklings indoors and they tried to sneak back in to see them whilst they were being cleaned out.

Our young joeys seem to be getting bigger now and with it much bolder. You are more likely to see them munching away on some leaves a few feet away from their mums now rather than just the odd little head poking out of a pouch. However they don't stray too far away from their mums, as they are still looking for protection and can jump straight back in the pouch when it feels necessary. It seems one pair of wallabies - a mum and her Joey have been on the move and have migrated from the woodland area to the marsh lake and just outside the tea room, where they have been able to enjoy a tasty banana skin or two. As well as the joeys becoming more active and bolder, the other wallabies seem to be getting more active as well. It looks as though its mating time again, which means there is more chance of seeing these animals close to as they are less worried about people and only interested in each other, so we have seen some fantastic mating displays and chases.

The two barn owls that we let go appear to be doing well. Whilst we haven't seen them we have found signs that they are coming back. They have been eating some of the food that we have been leaving out for them and whilst this could mean they aren't getting food themselves they are also leaving behind some nice big pellets which have been changing in colour. This indicates that they are managing to hunt for themselves and are just coming back for a top up and also shows that they are staying in the area, which is quite nice to know.

We also have some fresh faces in the park - three peachicks, two guinea fowl chicks and thirteen cockatiels. Two of the peachicks are being kept indoors with the two guinea fowl chicks as the guinea fowl left her nest and the eggs were hatched in the incubator and in the past the peahens don't seem to do too well looking after their chicks. However we have left one of the peachicks with its mum as she spent all that time hiding her nest and sitting on her eggs, we thought she should be able to see the end result and be given the chance to rear one of the chicks herself. Thirteen cockatiels - some people might say unlucky for some but these birds seem to be doing very well and enjoying the park. We had an empty aviary and the offer to temporarily house these birds, so thought it would make a change for the visitors and the cockatiels and the cockatiels certainly seem to be enjoying themselves.

Onto the otters now and it seems we could be expecting some fresh faces there later on this year as Raymond and Zephyr, from the family’s pen, have been seen mating again this week, which must be the second or third time this month. Unfortunately Tino has had a fat eye due to some overenthusiastic play with Tamarisk last week, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him and they are continuing to play just as exuberantly.

The cubs are still adoringly cute and Cinnamon is starting to get very cuddly. She has been climbing onto John and Mandy’s lap every time they go into the pen and seems to be enjoying being tickled. Whilst she seems to be enjoying this and has started realising that she has been missing out on all of the cuddles that Biggy and Smalley have had for so long now it is rather worrying for the keepers, as she is getting quite big and has very sharp teeth with a strong grip! Leap is also gaining in confidence but not to the point that she is yet having cuddles and tickles, but she is coming out more often when the other cubs are out and enjoys playing with them all. Whilst Cinnamon and Leap are growing quickly and Biggy is still quite a bit larger than Smalley who still seems to be boss of the group and gets away with pretty much everything. Biggy, however remains the most vocal and attention seeking otter we've ever known but still manages to be very cute!

Here’s hoping for some drier weather, Sonia.

Barn Owls update

2008-07-31T08:29:00.002+01:00

Just a very brief note to say that we think that at least one of the Barn Owl chicks returned on Tuesday night and took all of the food left in the Owl box. A very good sign indeed. My suspicion is that they are still together and will remain in the local area until they become more established. The weather here has been very wet for the last couple of days and isn't ideal for young, inexperienced birds learning to hunt so we are leaving out larger than usual portions for the next few days. Fingers crossed for drier weather in the coming week.

Otters in town

2008-07-28T13:51:00.001+01:00

What a busy week we’ve had and I’m not just talking about more visitors to the Centre either!

The Barn Owl chicks are doing well, their appetites are good and we’ve managed not to imprint them at all. Every time we approach them they hiss and click away at us, both very healthy signs that they didn’t trust us one bit.

By the middle of last week they both looked likely to fledge, all their down had gone and they looked great in their newly grown feathers so we opened the door to the outside world for them. They spent four or five days just taking in the view but this morning their supper from last night was untouched and the birds had gone. I don’t think they will be very far away and we’ll continue to leave food out for them for a while to give them support while they hopefully learn to hunt for themselves.

Back to otters now and last Sunday afternoon (everything seems to happen on Sundays recently) we received a number of telephone calls saying that there was a distressed otter cub in a drain by a river bridge in the centre of Launceston. We went to investigate and found a group of people watching a small cub that was hiding in a storm drain; they were just a few yards from a busy, noisy main road. It was 3pm on a very sunny afternoon and not the sort of time or place you’d expect to find such a shy animal.

Apparently an otter and possibly two cubs had been attacked by a group of ducks protecting ducklings, the three had become separated and one of the cubs had taken refuge in the drain. The hunter had become the hunted!! The bad news was that people who had seen the cub up close thought it had at least two injuries that might need medical treatment.

We caught the frightened little thing without too much trouble and took her back to the Centre so we could have a proper look at her. She was about five weeks old and once we had cleaned her up her “injuries” turned out to be nothing more than grease, probably from the inside of the drain. We fed her and then Mandy and I assessed the situation: we had a healthy cub and we knew exactly where it had been found. We suspected that its mum would stay around searching for her cub for at least a few hours so should we try to get them back together?

We knew that time was against us and that if we were going to find mum we had to do it as soon as possible so off we went with the cub in a small cage in the back of the van whistling for its mum the entire journey. It was just after 5pm. First we tried an area slightly down river of the bridge as that was where mum had been last seen. I whistled, the kids whistled and even Mandy whistled but we just couldn’t get the cub to call at all. Typical.

Then we tried near the bridge where she had been found. I just opened the back of the van and whistled for a minute or two and then, was that a reply? The cub thought so because she suddenly started to call at the top of her tiny voice! There were only a few people around and we didn’t want to attract any attention so I surreptitiously took the cage and placed it under the river bank where it would be hard to see from the road. The cub was still calling but I didn’t want to let it go until we were sure that mum was nearby, it might not be so easy to catch a second time. There was definitely an otter coming closer, we couldn’t see it but the calls were getting louder and louder.

When I was sure that mum was only a few metres away I took the cub from the cage and waded with her to an island in the middle of the river. I set it down in good cover and retreated. Five minutes passed and I didn’t see the next bit, but a lady standing in her garden did; she beckoned me over and said she had been watching our activities (so much for being secretive) and had just seen two otters, one a cub, together not far from where I had set her down. I watched the area with her and soon we saw them together in the shallows moving towards an area of dense cover. We then left them alone.

First thing the next morning Mandy and I went back to the river and had a good look around. We found a couch or resting place in deep cover where the otters had spent some time and then moved on. We were pretty sure that they had left the area the way they had arrived; as a family.

Chuffed to bits? You bet we were.

Summers coming, isn't it?

2008-07-15T10:05:00.002+01:00

Its that time of year again, no not the impending summer holidays, I mean its the end of the breeding season for most of our animals and birds here. Only one doe remains pregnant and boy is she huge!!No I mean really HUGE. It looks like she's about to explode but is very content with herself and doesn't seem in any discomfort apart from the weight of the fawn inside her. She's eating for Queen and country and competing with Nigel in the "Greedy Deer of the Year" contest. We await the results of her, literal, labours.

The Chinese Fawn Goslings have been released into the main park and are finding their way around quite well. They have been reunited with their duckling comrades and the 6 of them are usually found together.

Our Snowy Owl has built us up and let us down. She sat for nearly 5 weeks in all sorts of weather before hatching the first of her 3 eggs. She cared for the owlet very well for 6 days until the next chick hatched one Saturday morning. No sooner had one hatched than she ate the first one and within 4 hours had gone on to kill and eaten the second. We took out the remaining egg later that afternoon but it failed to hatch. I know that Snowy Owls have been noted to have cannibalistic tendencies but she really took us by surprise and we are all very disappointed that there are no new Snowy Owls this year.

Last Sunday 2 Barn Owl chicks were brought in to the Centre by a lady from a nearby village. She had been checking her horses earlier that day and had found the pair in short grass in the middle of a field far away from any trees or buildings with no clue as to how they had come to be there. They were both still very downy with some tail and wing feathers just coming through. One was alive but clearly unwell and the other appeared to be dead as it lay flat out in the bottom of a cardboard box; both were cold and wet. The first thing was to get them under a heat lamp and what a magical device that is. Half an hour under the lamp was all it took to get them both dry and on their feet, the dead one wasn't dead after all. I took them home and managed to feed them a little that night but although their stomachs felt empty they weren't very willing to eat. During the next three days we managed to establish a feeding routine with them and on Thursday we moved them into a purpose built owl box 12 feet off the ground in the lean-to part of the barn. We won't interact with them at all from now on if we can help it, they have room enough to eat, stretch and grow without any undue interference from us. Their box has 2 entrances, the one into the barn is open at present but as they approach fledging in three weeks or so we will open the outer door. Barn Owl are territorial and hopefully they will stay in the area so that we can monitor them as they grow.

All the otters are well, the cubs in particular are fine and dandy. Last week I made the mistake of putting my coat on the grass so that I could sit on it without getting wet. They all thought it was great fun, tunnelling into the sleeves, hiding under it etc. as I sat but what I hadn't noticed was that Cinnamon was stalking me from under my coat. It was too late to get out of the way when I did!! She had leaped at my right hand and had it in a grip like a vice. I yelped and so did she as she let me go. I'm sure she was just playing and had expected me to tease her by getting out of the way before she struck otherwise I'm sure the damage would have been much worse than the fairly minor punctures I was left with. Just goes to show that you should always keep an eye on them, however much you think you know them.

The fawns begin to arrive

2008-06-23T19:35:00.001+01:00

The ducklings and goslings are all doing well. We have let two of the bigger ducklings go and the goslings are now starting to get some tail and wing feathers, but they are still a bit too young to be let out into the rest of the park so we are still moving them around on the grass and have even given them a miniature pond which they like to have a good wash in.
Outside in the park the Barnacle goslings are still with their parents and the ever protective Greylag, being looked after very well. However they do seem to get into some unusual places, as they can’t yet fly but one still managed to get behind some fencing the other day which it was too big to fit through. However we got it out and it ran back to some frantic parents.
The Snowy Owl is still sitting on three eggs. They are due to hatch any time now and we are checking them regularly to see if there’s any progress. Hopefully they will hatch, as she deserves a reward for so patiently sitting on them, whatever the weather!
Lots of the birds are starting to look a bit tatty as they are all moulting, a few of the ducks, Karulah and the Golden Pheasant are looking particularly miserable as they have lost a lot of their main feathers. But hopefully it won’t take too long for them to grow back and they can start cheering up again. Being the complete opposite are the Peacocks, which are in full display at the moment and trying to attract the attention of all of the Peahens (and pretty much anything else).
In the last week we have had some Fallow Deer fawns. We think we have three but it may be four. Because they are so well camouflaged they are very difficult to spot. The mums are all being excellent parents, feeding them when necessary and placing them at the bottoms of trees (which they blend in with very well) to keep them out of the way and let them rest. We saw one at the beginning of the week just after it had been born, (we must have missed the birth by about 5 minutes). It was very exciting and the mum did a good job of cleaning it off and protecting it from other nosey deer who wanted to see what was going on. Unfortunately we did lose a fawn the other day, there didn’t seem to be much wrong with it, but it could have possibly been a bit underdeveloped. The rest are all a few days old now though so hopefully they will all survive and continue to do well. We are still expecting about another four fawns and are looking forward to their arrivals. The cubs are all doing well. We have moved them into a different pen because they have been so destructive in the pen they are in - just digging and creating holes everywhere and generally making a mess. Because of Smalley’s previous accident we decided to move him first and check he could get in and out of the ponds ok before moving all of the other cubs into the pen. Smalley managed the ponds just fine, he is much stronger than he used to be! However this was the first time him and Biggy had ever been separated. They pined for each other whilst separated but it was only a short while before they were reunited, but it was very clear during this time to see the strong bond they have between them. Cinnamon and Leap weren’t so fussed about being separated or being reunited with the others and took it in their stride. However, a new pen meant they were quite wary about coming out and it has taken them a while to get used to it. Initially none of them would go in the water in this pen, but we knew how much they had all loved swimming around in their other pen, so on went the waders and within about 5 minutes Biggy jumped in the water with Smalley following right behind him. Now they love it and we have moved their slide in with them, which they still like to slide down, climb up and use for dive bombing each other.
In the last couple of days Leap has been really gaining confidence. It was a real effort to get her to come out as she was so shy but this week she has been coming out for her breakfast and tea when nobody is around and in the last couple of days she has been out in front of everyone, very keen for some food. Whilst it is a definite improvement to have her coming out and about; she is a bit stroppy with the keepers and other otters, but hopefully the more she comes out the more she will settle down.
The rest of the otters are all doing well but Tino and Tamarisk are starting to the occasional scuffle with each other for no apparent reason. Hopefully they will start calming down or we may have to separate them. We are starting to see more of Hilda at the moment as she is coming out more often at the feeds and staying out so people can see her, but still no signs of pregnancy, William is obviously being rather lazy!
That’s all for now, lets hope for a few sunny days, Sonia.

"Reliable" Goose fails at first hurdle.....

2008-06-05T17:44:00.005+01:00

I wonder who coined that old adage 'never work with children or animals', they were obviously very perceptive whoever they were.

Our Goose Experiment, was well..........., I can only say it was a complete failure.
Our reliable Gander proved to be totally unreliable and wasn't interested in the goslings at all. We let him go the morning after we caught him and he didn't look back once, he just legged it to the nearest pond. It may be that he prefers to select his kidnap victims himself rather than have them forced upon him or it might be that he was confined overnight which upset him and put him off his usual habits. Anyway, the result is that we have still got the ducklings and goslings confined to a shed at night but they go out into a mobile ark during the day so that they have fresh grazing and get used to being outside. They are all very friendly and look great, so maybe we'll let them free soon.

We have lost several ducklings in the last few days, including a pair of European Shelduck which is very disappointing; I think we may have a pike in one our ponds and that it is responsible for our losses, but it might be a mink or some other predator.

On a brighter note our Snowy Owl is still sitting after nearly three weeks. She has shown great determination and hasn't moved however bad the weather has got. She is on three eggs which are due to hatch in ten days or so all being well.

The Fallow Deer are still pregnant with no fawns being born yet but the first births must be imminent so we are having a good look around each day. We are letting them out onto the lawns at night so that they have fresh grazing but they do leave their calling cards everywhere which creates a bit of cleaning up job. Nigel is starting to look more like the dominant buck that he is; his antlers are growing very quickly and he's got his self esteem back.

All the otters are fine but Hilda is still showing no signs of being pregnant and we haven't seen any activity that might suggest that she is.

The cubs are doing well. They have been in a destructive mood for a week now and break or attempt to break anything that they can get hold of. We have placed a childrens garden slide in one of their ponds to help them to gain confidence and learn the limits of their abilities. If they do fall off (or rather, when they fall off) they fall into the pond so its pretty safe for them. Smalley can only manage the first two steps but uses this vantage point to bomb his fellow cubs and dive into the water. Biggy and Cinnamon think its great, whizzing up and sliding down with great delight. Leap is still rather shy and we haven't seen her use it yet but maybe she does it at night or at other times when she isn't being watched.

That's all for now, lets hope for a little warmer weather in the next few days.

The Gander Experiment

2008-05-24T20:46:00.000+01:00

These last two weeks have been extreme here in Cornwall; some beautiful long sunny days mixed with, well, last Friday for instance……a wet day but not too bad until about 3 o’clock when the rain became torrential. Two hours later we were two feet under water. I had to dig out the full waterproofs and wellingtons that I’d just stored away for the summer and get to work clearing and unclogging and generally keeping the water damage to a minimum. By 7pm the water had receded enough for me to decide it was safe to go home without much damage to property but lots of problems for the ground nesting birds and their youngsters. Several nests had been flooded, including our Snowy Owls who were nesting on the ground in a scrape. A number of ducklings also just seemed to disappear, presumably victims of the cold, wet weather. Hopefully the ducks and other birds will try again, our Snowy Owl hasn’t wasted any time at all and has already made a new (higher) scrape and laid two eggs; she doesn’t usually sit very well so it will be interesting to see how this affects her.

Our Chinese Fawn Gosling are three weeks old today and making good progress. I want to let them out of their hatching shed and pen area and into the grounds so that they can graze at will and have access to the ponds but the problem is that without a goose to look after them their chances of surviving are low. So we’ve hatched a plan (no pun intended) and it goes like this……

We have a Greylag Gander who loves babies. He loves them so much that he attaches himself to any duck or goose that has ducklings or goslings and tries to steal the babies. Don’t worry, he won’t harm them, in fact he usually does a great job of taking care of them. If we can link the gander up to our goslings they will stand a good chance of survival. This afternoon I managed to catch him and tonight he is in the shed with the goslings. Tomorrow morning we’ll try and decide whether they have bonded and if they have we’ll let them all out together, so fingers crossed for a good result. If they don’t bond them we haven’t lost anything and we’ll let the gander free.

Nigel (our Fallow buck) is less bashful now that his antlers are growing back; they are now about four inches long and covered in velvet. Soon they will start growing very fast and he will cheer up even more. His does are looking very rotund and we are expecting some fawns in the next couple of weeks or so- let’s hope it stays fairly dry.

To other matters…the otters are all fine, and the cubs in particular are still doing well.

Some of you may have seen Wednesday’s Western Morning News and Friday’s Times with our new national star Biggy having his tummy tickled (very cute).

Staying with the paper theme I’d like to thank Class 1 of Egloskerry Primary School for their excellent book and information sheets. Its really nice to see the children so interested in nature after their visit here a couple of weeks ago. All of their work is on display and they have even had time to give our young buck a name; he’s to be called Hansel because he’s handsome and lives in the woods. I don’t think any of us can argue with that!

Biggy to the Rescue (well almost)!

2008-05-10T18:33:00.001+01:00

Smalley is doing quite well now. We had to move all of the otter cubs from their new sunny pen back to the old one a few weeks ago as Smalley had a little accident and fell in one of the ponds in the pen and was unable to get himself out. Biggy tried to be a hero and tried pulling him out of the pond with his mouth, just the way their older siblings would have done had they still been in the pen with the family. However Biggy was not yet strong enough or big enough to achieve this feat and one of the keepers came to the rescue. He was a bit shivery but once he was dried off he was absolutely fine. We then moved them all back to the pen they had been in originally and even though Smalley was ok we still all kept a close eye on him. Now they are all doing well and Smalley’s trip into the pond hasn’t seemed to scare him off the water and although he’s been a bit slower than the others he’s just this week started to swim. Even though Biggy and Smalley can swim perfectly well and started at quite a young age in the bath at home, they seemed to be a bit put off by the coldness here, but now the sun is shining and it’s starting to warm up they’ve taken to it really well. The other cubs are all doing ok as well, Cinnamon and Biggy continue to be the best of friends and love playing together and generally trying to cause as much mayhem as possible. Leap is still a bit shy but as she is so much younger than the others this is understandable. She likes the company of the others and doesn’t like being left on her own. But we think she is getting a bit braver as she will come out of her box of her own accord first thing in the morning and in the evening when no members of the public are around. It looks like the toad incident may be one of many attempts at trying to catch their own food as they recently caught a newt and Biggy in particular is quite adept at fishing for insects and grubs in the water. However whilst little squirmy things interest them they have shown that there are not quite so brave when it comes to slightly bigger animals with feathers. One of the ducklings managed to get into their pen the other day, bear in mind it was small enough it would fit quite comfortably into the palm of your hand and they all ran away from it! This is obviously one of the learning processes they have missed out on from not being in with their family and it is up to us to teach them that these things are ok.

All of the otters are doing well and have taken to sleeping a lot more as the weather gets warmer. However they will occasionally exert a bit of pressure on themselves and in two days Tino and Tamarisk caught themselves three moorhens, needless to say they weren’t interested in their lunch at all after that.

We have had a few ducklings hatch, several Mallards and some Muscovy ducklings, however these have gradually dwindled in numbers, probably due to the crows coming down and picking them off and we have also noticed several Moorhen chicks running around. The Barnacle geese appear to be sitting on eggs on the island. Last year they had five goslings so hopefully we will have some more this year. They are very protective parents and look after their young very well. We have also had an Indian runner duckling hatch from the incubator and to keep him company we caught up one of the mallard ducklings and both seem to get on very well. Today we have four Chinese goose eggs in the process of hatching and one that has already hatched, also out of the incubator. So, all in all things seem to be successful on the young bird front.

The young buck has improved in confidence a great deal and from just starting to take food out of the keepers hands it took him a couple of days and he is now taking food out of the publics hands and is not at all shy about coming forwards for it. He has also just started getting his first white spots on his coat, so he’s starting to blend in with the others a bit more. All of the deer are quite relaxed at the moment and many of them have been coming down to feed from peoples hands. Nigel is looking a little less sorry for himself and has two bumps rather like plant bulbs on his head where his antlers will start to grow back.

The tawny owlet hasn’t been seen in a while now so we are assuming it is fully fledged and has now left the nest.

Several people have now seen the young joeys in their pouches and a few people have even seen them coming out of the pouch for a few minutes and then getting back in.

We have also seen some very young muntjac fawns, definitely one and possibly two. One of them is very small and has been seen wandering around with its mum and was also seen suckling a few weeks ago.

What with all the young birds, deer and wallabies it is quite an exciting time at the moment!

Composed by Sonia (one of the keepers).

Toads rule ok!

2008-04-16T18:18:00.000+01:00

Spring is trying hard to make itself known and although it is still very wet underfoot the sun certainly has a bit more heat in it than it has had of late and some of the ground is even drying up in places. Not good for those dabbling ducks but much better for the rest of us.

Our splendid Fallow Deer buck Nigel (we think he’ll be 15 later this year- a great age for this breed of animal) is looking a little sorry for himself in the last couple of days because both of his antlers have fallen off. This is completely natural and happens every spring. His scars will have healed up in the next ten days or so and after that the antlers will begin to grow again, but until then I think he’ll be a bit miserable. In complete contrast our young buck is very proud of the inch long pricks on the top of his head. He’s just nine months old and supremely confident. Until today he’s been coming down for a feed but avoiding actual contact with the keepers but this afternoon he took several handfuls of food directly from Mandy’s hand. A very cocky young buck indeed.

We have our first ducklings on the pond- two seen yesterday (but so far not today) -and lots of birds on eggs. Also, and even more exciting, a Tawny Owlet has been seen several times on a tree branch by the waterfall. He’s been seen at various times of the day by a number of visitors. The common factor seems to be that he likes to come out in the sun but isn’t straying far from his nest. He looks to be about four to six weeks old so he won’t be there for very much longer. Tawny Owls are fairly common down here but wage a constant battle for nest sites with jackdaws and crows. Two years ago we even had a pair of Tawny’s build their nest and fledge three chicks from a nest they built actually inside the Bengal Eagle Owl aviary.

The peacocks and guinea fowl are all looking great with their new plumage and they are spending a lot of time and effort on looking good and attracting partners.

The otters are all well and spring is getting under their skin too. They are spending a lot of time playing (and then sleeping) other than Hilda, who rather typically is keeping a low profile and is only glimpsed occasionally.

The cubs are all well. Smalley has made a slight but noticeable improvement in his movement. He can now get up one stair. Not much you might think, but considering what he was like a short while ago we are pleased as punch. He is still a bit of a worry to all of us but we are optimistic. Biggy is fine, pushy and very energetic. He can often be seen playing with Cinnamon and they continue to get on very well.

Leap has improved too; she has put on a lot of weight and is looking very healthy. She still has a nervous (or evil) temperament but can be quite bold at times. Cinnamon is more and more likeable and beautiful every day. She is in superb condition and her coat shines like it has just been polished.

Last week we decided to leave the British cubs at work in a pen overnight for the first time because they were getting to be a bit of a handful; moving furniture whenever they felt like it and completely taking over the vegetable rack and some of their favourite kitchen chairs. They were easy to move from home to work every day but it is in their interests to move them away from us as soon as practical. They coped very well and seem to be adapting to their new, cooler environment without much trouble.

They were joined on Monday night by Biggy and Smalley. We worried about Smalley being cold but when I went in and checked them yesterday morning he was at the centre of a lovely fluffy otter heap and was warm as toast so as long as he burrows his way into the centre of the group he should be fine.

Biggy and Smalley are rather older than the others (19 weeks compared to Cinnamon at 13 weeks and Leap at 10 weeks) but look quite small compared to their British cousins.

We have moved the cubs into a sunnier pen with an electric water pump and they can obviously hear it humming because they have been put off swimming in the ponds. Once they get used to it I’m sure they will enjoy their new home. However, they haven’t been put off exploring and this morning I was in with them when they discovered a toad. They caught it, chomped on it a bit, realised their mistake and spent the next ten minutes with expressions that reminded me of our kids eating limes. They couldn’t get rid of the taste quickly enough but after a good drink three of them went back to it and started licking it again! The toad had been still all along and I thought it was dead and it just lay there as the three otters licked and spat and licked and spat. After a while the otters decided that the toad wasn’t good to eat and left it alone and went to try to find something else to annoy. A few minutes later I saw the toad rapidly heading for cover; I think I could hear him laughing….

We're open!

2008-03-28T20:31:00.000Z

Considering we had 19 weeks to prepare and so many people to help why did opening day come round so quickly and surprise us all so much? I’m not sure either but that’s what happened. However, we opened on Good Friday without any major hitches or glitches and only a few wet patches of paint. Most of us were quietly confident that we hadn’t forgotten anything too important and we were right.

It was a pretty quiet day though; the rest of the week has been too, the weather hasn’t been great and it is very early in the year so things will pick up soon.

The Wallabies have surprised us over the last few days, at first there was one joey, then Denis saw two and then this morning Sonia and I saw three! All still in there mothers pouches but all looking healthy (their faces did anyway) and one of them has quite peculiar large blond eyebrows; very becoming.

The Fallow Deer have been testing our patience by creating holes in their fencing that you’d think they couldn’t get through but they do because they end up in the wrong enclosures and can be awkward to put back. After a short while and some minor repairs all the deer were back where they should be but I am anticipating further escapes; I’m not sure why though because the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence.

The otters are all doing fine. Hilda has moved back in with William and has him under her thumb again, a position which seems to suit him just fine. The little Asian Short Clawed female is getting on very well and comes out with the Family all the time now and demands to be fed just like everyone else, she is very cute.

The four cubs (Biggy, Smalley, Cinnamon and Leap (we decided that the name Spotty wasn’t very becoming)) are still at home at night but go to work every day and if it isn’t too wet or cold they go into their own pen for a few hours. They have two ponds and a stream to explore and seem to like it if it’s not too cold. We have been encouraging them to search for shrimps and daphnia which mainly entails the keepers getting wet and muddy and the otters looking on waiting for the goodies. However, as a reward for our efforts Biggy has decided that the fresh food is so nice it’s worth him making the effort to catch his own and he joined me in the stream this morning. He was very enthusiastic as he sploshed and splashed around my hands and feet and at last caught one of his own. He had a very satisfied expression on his face as he chewed it up but then thought his work was done and started whining because he was wet and the day was cold. Into my jacket he went and settled down in there very quickly, nice and warm see and he knew it. He was very unwilling to come out too.

Cinnamon is doing fine; although she does have the occasional try at biting a keeper she is settling down well and is showing us her nicer side at times. She has romps with Biggy and is a bit of a thug in a sisterly way. She has allowed me to touch her once or twice in play but I am very wary of her temper and her speed.

Leap is still giving us some concern as she is small and doesn’t always eat as much or as often as the rest of the gang. She is becoming very slightly bolder though and sometimes forgets herself and tries to play with a person instead of an otter. She has lost her instant temper and is enjoying life a little more I think. Her wounds are healed. I was looking at pictures of her with a friend of mine the other day and he pointed out that a number of her white patches appear to be in pairs, as though they were scars from bites in earlier attacks. Who or what might have inflicted this damage will never be known for certain but we speculated that a bigger sibling or even her mother may have been responsible. Or of course she might just be an unlucky little otter and have been attacked by some other predator.

Smalley is the cute one of the bunch. He is playful, cuddly and always pleasant and good tempered. His walking is much the same and that is worrying but he is such a bright little thing that I can’t help but be optimistic for him. He has been being picked on by the others but is now sticking up for himself a bit and I even heard him growl at Cinnamon for rolling him over the other day and she left him alone for a while after that. Good boy Smalley!

Raining Otters

2008-03-10T19:33:00.001Z

It never rains then it pours! So true here in Cornwall this week in more ways than one. Firstly, if you’ve seen the news or live nearby you’ll know it’s wet, wet, wet here at the moment and likely to stay that way for a few days. We’ve already lost one tree to the wind and with the worst of the weather still to come so its fingers crossed that we don’t suffer any further damage.
It’s also been raining otters; we haven’t had any wild otters brought to us for over a year and the last one was so ill that it unfortunately died after two days. However, late on Sunday 24th February we received a call that resulted in us collecting a small furry bundle from a town in Devon. The otter, about seven weeks old, was seen alone on a road earlier that evening by Cindy who had watched helplessly as the wheels of the car in front straddled the poor animal as it lay in the road. She stopped and picked up the frightened baby which, very unusually, offered no resistance at all. I’m sure that if Cindy hadn’t decided to help, the cub would have perished.
When we got the otter (who we have called Cinnamon) home it was obviously in shock and still very placid. I stayed up with it most of the first night and syringed milk into its mouth. It gradually seemed to take a little more interest in its surroundings and, by tea time the following day seemed to be a bit better but was still dehydrated and suffering from diarrhoea.
Cinnamon had noticed Biggy and Smalley across the kitchen but was too frightened to do anything about it so we decided to allow them to see each other but not have any contact with them for a while. Later that evening, after a good feed and play with the Asian cubs we introduced Cinnamon to them properly; Biggy was fine about it all, touching and sniffing the new arrival but not being aggressive at all. Smalley was another kettle of fish altogether, snorting, screaming and generally not happy but after a couple of hours they all settled down in a big bundle and went to sleep. When I checked them at 3am they hadn’t moved so I decided to leave them alone and let them bond rather than disturbing them for a feed.
Then it became easier to tell that Cinnamon was getting over things. How? Because it started to bite and bite very hard, very hard indeed! That’s why I wear thick gloves, I’ve decided I like my fingers and would like to keep them all; even with the gloves on the bites hurt and easily draw blood if it bites further up my arms where there isn’t such good protection.
So there we are, Cinnamon settling in nicely and we were just getting into a routine when on the following Friday we had another call which resulted in us looking after a very small, miserable and feisty otter cub. This one is not yet weaned and that, together with its size makes me think that this one is very young, probably five or six weeks old at most. It was a very bony otter cub with no spare flesh. Rather disturbingly it also had at least three bites on its back end and several large tics spread over its body. The bites were fresh so we cleaned them up but decided to let the tics alone and deal with them when they dropped off.
Do you remember I said that Cinnamon was placid at first? Well, no such luck with this one who makes up for in ferocity what it lacks in size. The cub, which has an unusual dappled pelt (which is why it’s called Spotty), is hard to feed. It’s very particular about its milk and rarely attempts to eat any solids. We have got the milk just about right now, but solids are a different thing. It will only take solids that are literally put under its nose, usually in my hand or if it gets near enough to one of the others it will steal theirs. The otters don’t seem to worry too much about the theft, after all there’s a good supply of food nearby, but I do because it won’t take food off the glove, it has to be my bare skin or nothing! Is it any wonder that I’m going grey?
So now we have otter opposites; in one corner Biggy and Smalley (cute, cuddly and love to play with you) and in the other Cinnamon and Spotty (Atilla the Hun/Boudicca personality traits, but not so forgiving). Ah well maybe they’ll calm down soon, if they don’t Ill have to learn to type with bandaged fingers. For now they all seem happy with each other and usually snuggle up together, very cute.
That’s all for now, John.

Work, work, work . . .

2008-02-24T17:07:00.003Z

Well time is getting on and most of those jobs that we were sure we'd have done by now are still unfinished and some not even started yet! So much for a carefully thought out winter maintenance plan.
One job that is largely completed is our woodland tidying; much of the woodland hasn't been touched for years so there's lots to do but most of this winters' work has been done thanks to a group of friends who came down for four days from the 15th February and sawed, clipped, pruned, felled, trimmed up, brushed down and polished (did they really polish??) an area of woods until it looked to be in fine fettle.
A special mention should be made to the boys (Rhys, Ed, Jamie, Jamesy and Andrew) who were very helpful between bouts of camp building, warring, camp destroying, rolling down hills on your side and frog catching - mind you there wasn't much time to work after doing all that!.
The girls (Frances and Lara) confined themselves to doing boyish things better than the boys, they were certainly dirtier and Frances' clothes are still being soaked 5 days later.
Very big thanks to the Reaveleys, Tresizes' and Browns.
Lots of other smaller jobs are nearing completion and if the weather stays goood we should get all of the important things done by the time we open on Good Friday. The last ten days or so of clear, dry weather has been good for all of the animals and it seems to have put some of them (especially the ducks) in the mood for love.
We've seen great interest in and around nest boxes as they are inspected by potential occupiers; the deer and wallabies seem to have an extra spring in their step too.
The otters are all fine; we still don't see very much of Hilda but from signs in the pen we know she is there. If she doesn't have any cubs she'll be going back in with William soon. The rest of the otters have all got smiles on their faces, they don't seem to mind the winter very much but I think they are detecting the slight rise in temperature and are enjoying it.
The Asian Otter cubs are 13 weeks old today (Sunday). The females (as yet unnamed but we are open to suggestions) are still very small, probably no larger than 400 to 500 grams. One of them is very active and surprised Denis at feeding time the other day by coming out and demanding her own food portion just like the others but the other one is rather retiring and scrawny looking. We took her out yesterday to check her for any obvious problems and she seemed strong and alert so maybe she is just a slow starter.
The boys, Biggy and Smalley, are still at home with us and generally doing well. Both weigh in at 1300 grams+ almost three times their sisters weight! They are getting quite bold and are very inquisitive. They still swim at least three times a day (in tepid water, if its too cold they just get out!) and we were taking them to work every day so that they could have some freedom in a secure pen however, Smalley has developed a worrying problem with at least one of his legs which means he is having some difficulty getting around unless he is swimming, when he appears fine. He's been to the vet and is on a course of treatment so we'll see how he gets on.
That's all for now, John.

The Return of the Fox

2008-02-08T16:05:00.000Z

Well, from the title you've probably guessed that the fox has been back; on Tuesday morning we arrived at work and saw a bunch of peacock tail feathers on the path next to a fence. We did a brief search and about 20 metres away was the half eaten body of the peacock, a superb bird with his courting plumage almost completely grown. All of our peacocks can fly and generally roost high in the trees before coming to earth for their breakfast at around 8am. I wonder if the fox knew that too and was waiting for him when he landed.

He hadn't been dead for very long and I suspect that as we drove into the car park we had probably scared the fox away.

It was obviously time for a security review to find out where the fox was getting in but with well over a mile of ring fencing to check that was easier said than done. There are three parts to our ring fence, a 2 to 2.5 metre tall deer proof fence, inside that a 1.2 metre tall vermin fence and a three strand electric fence outside them both to deter climbers.

It took four people five days to check and repair! That's an awful lot of time to keep out just one fox and the worry is that he will find another way in sometime in the future.

The Golden Pheasant has been in the wars, he turned up this morning and was bleeding from his right foot. Because he's so friendly he was easy to catch and examine; he'd lost the tip of the claw on his middle toe somehow and it was bleeding freely. A quick bit of avian first aid was given and we'll keep him in the barn over the weekend to make sure he's recovering; as for how he'd done this we couldn't fathom but he does get himself into quite a few pickles because he's so nosey.

We have two Fallow Deer bucks here. The elder statesman, 15 years old in June, is Nigel, a splendid, friendly old boy who rules the roost and keeps the herd in order. He must also be one of the oldest Fallow on record and we have to keep an eye on him to make sure he eats properly because his teeth must be well worn by now. We also have a young pricket who is only 8 months old and starting to get quiet confident around the keepers. If two doe's are being hand fed he will often squeeze between them and pick up whatever they drop, not bold enough on his own but progressing nicely.

The British Otters are all fine and Hilda has disappeared into her holt for the last few days. We know she's in there but she has become very secretive. The last time she did that we thought she was pregnant but in the event she wasn't. It is possible that she is pregnant or has given birth but we've decided not to disturb her for the time being and see what develops. It may be that she is just missing her partner William, who we moved out a few days ago.

The Asian Otters are all fine too but Zephyr does look tired. She has developed a squint and looks her age (12 Years) but that might be because of the pressures of motherhood. The two female cubs with the Family are doing fine. They are still quite small but taking part in Family activity several times a day. As we approach them we hear them squeak and one of the others, usually Tilly comes and comforts them and then drags them to somewhere they don't want to go to but she thinks they should be. They all forget about us as we look on and a battle of wills begins which Tilly always wins because she's much bigger and stronger than them. We have seen the cubs in the pond but I don't think they are swimming just yet - would you want to swim in a pond in February??

The male cubs (we can't think of suitable names for them but are calling them Biggy and Smalley for the moment) are getting big too. They've been moved out of their crate in the utility room to a large cage in the kitchen which they seem to like; they roam free whenever we're at home and can now climb the vegetable rack, raid unguarded cupboards and sneak from room to room like two little brown commando's. And don't leave any buckets, mops or bowls of water anywhere that they can find because that is a shortcut to an otter flood; at least the culprits are easy to find because they leave a water trail wherever they go.

Their routine is well established and they know when its bath time or cuddle time and make different noises if they want to let you know that they want something. They get very excited at bath time and its fair to say that they are "mad for it". Both are now accomplished swimmers and divers but you'd better make sure that water's warm enough because if it isn't they'll let you know by trying to jump straight out. They will come when called and are particularly responsive to Mandy, making a bee line for her and jumping into her arms for reassurance if something gives them a scare and sometimes just for a cuddle if they are tired, especially Biggy - the big softee!

The Return of the Golden Pheasant.

2008-01-29T14:16:00.000Z

The Golden Pheasant was seen on Thursday afternoon on the wrong side of the fence down by the river, by Friday morning he was at the main entrance gate waiting to be let back in! He is in fine shape so obviously fancied a change of scenery for a few days; we were all really pleased to have him safely back with us.

We are pleased to report that the fox has not made a return visit to date and there are no signs of him having been in again.

Now for the cubs update, the two females on site are looking healthy and active and have been seen outside wandering around the pen under strict supervision from the rest of their family. The family are taking in food when we feed them so they are being weaned which will take some of the pressure off mum. Zephr is looking in good condition so we are pleased with the way things are progressing at the moment.
The boys meanwhile are also doing really well, putting on weight, eating well and becoming much more active and agile. Last Friday they decided they did not like the white fish we were giving them, they sniffed it, put in their mouths and then spat it back out again. They ate the raw mince with relish, we decided to try a piece of rainbow trout which they wolfed down so they were just being fussy! Obviously we cannot have them being this fussy when the long term plan is for them to return to the park where their diet will include a variety of fish and chicks. John sat up with them for a hour and a half that evening and offered them nothing but their milk and the white fish. They eventually gave in and now have a mixture of the mince and fish and eat all the mince and about three quarters of the fish!
They have also learnt to swim this week, they started out being a little timid in the water but they have three swims a day and with each one they became more confident. They now swim around with their heads under the water, play around together and seem to really enjoy themselves. This is really good news as we have heard of otters that have been hand reared being afraid of the water initially.
All the staff have been involved in feeding the cubs during the day, it is good for them to share the experience and for the cubs to get used to seeing different people.

At the park the maintenance is ongoing and the weeks flying by so quickly that we will never get everything done that we hoped to do during the winter months.

That's all for now, almost time for another feed and swim for the cubs!

Otter Keepers' Wife.

Cub update.

2008-01-23T17:10:00.000Z

I apologise for not updating the blog earlier. The past week has flown by and we have been really busy both at work and home. We are pleased to tell you that the Asian Otter Cubs that we took away from the parents are doing extremely well, they have put on almost 100 grammes each and have been weaned onto solids now. They are given a small amount of raw fish and raw mince at feeding time during the day but not at the 4am feed. We have had to move them into a higher bedding box as they were attempting to climb out of the of the one they were in.
They are extremely playful when they come out for feeds and enjoy exploring the kitchen and playing with the balls we have got for them. Then they end up wrestling with each other before being returned to their box and falling to sleep again! They are fed every 4 or 5 hours now, they usually feed in about 10 minutes now compared to 40 when we first got them but it still takes over an hour as we groom them and play with them. Their coats are getting coarser and their teeth are coming through too at a very fast rate. This morning we introduced them to water as they were becoming a little smelly, we filled the sink with tepid water and put them in, they did not panic and were curious about the dripping tap!
We are also pleased to report that the two females that stayed with their parents have been doing well too. They have been introduced to life outside their box by being dragged out by one of their parents being dipped into the cold pond and mud before being taken back inside!

We have had an unwelcome visitor on site, we spotted a large dog fox by the marsh lake yesterday, he soon made off but had helped himself to at least one of our ducks. We then had to try and find out where he got in, we found a small hole which we have blocked and there was no sign of him today. we heard today that several of our neighbours in the village have lost ducks and chickens through a fox. We were given a brown Chinese Goose today from someone in the village as the rest of his stock had been taken by the fox.

We have been busy repairing Sunny and Thors' (Asian Short Clawed Otters) pen, and dredging their pond. We have also noticed that our Golden Pheasant has not been around since Sunday, he is a real character and comes to greet you in the morning and follows you around as you work, often attempting to follow you into the otter pens when we are feeding and sitting on the wheelbarrow and even jumping onto the piece of wood you are sawing! We are concerned that he has been a victim of the fox but have found no evidence to confirm this yet.
He can be a bit of a nuisance at times but we have really missed him not being around.
We will keep you posted with developments, signed,

The Otter Keepers Wife

Cub News

2008-01-11T18:07:00.000Z

For those of you who have been here before you may know that we were concerned about our Asian Short Clawed Otter cubs.

On Monday 7th January 2008 we again weighed them and were really disappointed when none of then showed any weight gain at all. That indicated that Zephyr was probably unable to produce enough milk to support all of her babies.

We had prepared ourselves for this and had previously agreed that if Zephyr wasn't able to supply enough milk we would take out two of the larger cubs, the two males, and attempt to hand rear them. This would leave Zephyr to feed the two, smaller, female cubs - thus reducing the strain on her and hopefully giving all of the cubs a fighting chance.

We had taken our mobile incubator (large plastic ice cream tub, hot water bottle, straw and lid) with us and removed the cubs as soon as the weighing was completed. More about the boys later.

The remainder of the Family didn't seem too concerned until they had finished their breakfast, but then they noticed that two of their cubs were missing. It was a little upsetting to watch them search and call for them but I was sure we were doing the right thing. They searched for the boys for some time; all day on and off, but eventually seemed to realise that they had gone.

We have checked to see how the two female cubs with the Family are doing and up to yesterday (Thursday) they looked very good. We haven't checked today because of the awful weather, but there's no reason to think that there are any problems at present. The Family have settled back down and will hopefully take good care of their youngest members.

The Boys..

As soon as we got the boys into their ice cream tub (which was very snug with the straw and hot water bottle) we put them into the van and took them home.

Their first day here was very quiet as we managed the change over from their mothers' milk to the replacement and gave them a chance to get used to the new sounds and smells of our utility room and kitchen.

They were fed by syringe every three hours (which is actually every two hours because it was taking almost an hour to feed them!) and then allowed to sleep under a heat lamp. This is an important time because a change of diet at this stage in their lives can induce diarrhoea which is a serious condition for any small (or large) animal. The first two days went very well, their appetities increased and so, gradually, did their weight. They weren't very active at first but were gaining confidence and starting to explore their new environment.

Wednesday went so well that we decided to risk moving them on from the syringe to a lambs' bottle. After a little bit of difficulty they both got the hang of it and feeding times went down and quantities went up. Marvellous, you'd think.....

Then on Thursday afternoon a small amount of diarrhoea was seen on the small cub, and he was soon followed by his brother. By Friday both were slightly worse and we decided it was time for a trip to the Vet.

It's Friday evening now and while it's safe to say that neither of the boys actually like their medicine they are taking it. Their feeding isn't bad and they are both still inquisitive and active; wrestling and nibbling being high on the agenda (although not as high as sleep). Fingers crossed for a good recovery.

The Weigh In.

2008-01-05T15:45:00.000Z

The Asian Short Clawed Cubs were 5 weeks old on Sunday (30th December) and we thought that it was time to weigh them to see what the differences in their weights actually were. We all look in on the Family and they are very used to our daily visits and don't usually pay us much attention when we feed them and look in on the cubs. In addition I have also been handling the cubs regularly so that we can examine them without causing any stress to the animals. However, we always have to be careful to treat the group with respect and to take nothing for granted.

So at about 9.15 on Sunday morning Mandy and I walked up to the Family pen and prepared to enter; they were unusually noisy and agitated and when Mandy threw in the first course of their breakfast they completely ignored it. Very odd behaviour for this lot! We talked to them and offered more food but they still weren't interested one little bit. These animals can be very vicious when roused and have a powerful bite so we decided to complete our morning rounds and to go back to them half an hour later to see if they had calmed down.

When we returned their mood hadn't changed one iota. Their food lay where it had fallen and they were still riled and upset. We wondered if one of the cubs had died or whether another animal, such as a mink or stoat, had got into the holt while the family had been away from it and attacked the cubs. We decided on the broom test - put a broom into the pen and see what their reaction was; well it was a conclusive if not very scientific result. The broom lost after being seriously assaulted by the Family! Something was very wrong and it was certainly too dangerous to go in with them but what was up?

Mandy and I discussed the situation and as we talked we noticed just how much dirty straw there was in their pen, could it be that simple? A couple of minutes later we returned with a wheelbarrow full of fresh straw and threw some of it to them. Well, what a response! Six very stressed otters transformed themselves into a team of very industrious movers, shifters and cleaners. The straw was taken into the holt and their mood changed so quickly that within two or three minutes I was in the pen with them and looking in on the cubs as normal. All four snuggled together in the bottom of a very bare holt sleeping soundly. And there lies the key to their annoyance - no clean straw! They'd obviously decided on a really major spring clean sometime earlier that morning but didn't have anything to replace the dirty straw. They don't usually replace all the straw in one go but prefer to take a little out every day and we provide a replacement.

Panic over we decided not to weigh the cubs that morning but on January 3rd we took them out of their holt and weighed them on a set of portable scales at the side of the pen. The Family could see what we were up to with their precious offspring but weren't agitated at all. In two or three minutes it was all over - two males (400 and 440 grammes) and two females (about 300 grammes (wriggling) and 340 grammes). The differences are still a worry but that's for another day. They were all replaced just where I found them and only one of them (the wriggler) was woken up by our activity. Very cute!

I don't think my mum ever got that concerned about spring cleaning, then again we didn't all share the same bed.......

Cute cubs.

2007-12-30T18:14:00.000Z

Well as you can probably imagine it's been a rather quiet few days here; everything ticking over nicely but not a lot of action apart that is, from our cubs. They were 4 weeks and 2 days old on Christmas Day and when I checked them on Christmas morning I noticed that one of them had just begun to open his or her eyes. They were just tiny slits with a hint of black behind them but definitely opening! By Friday 28th December three of the cubs had both eyes open, not quite fully round yet but nicely widening slits. Unfortunately the smallest cub, I've mentioned her before, had only just started to open her right eye - a very odd sight. By this morning (Sunday 30th) she had both eyes open but they are still just narrow slits compared to those of her brothers and sisters.

This may or not be significant; it's clear that she is developing at the slowest rate and is around 5 days or so behind her siblings. At the moment all of the cubs suckle from Zephyr and none of them can move around independently. However, all this will change in the next week and if this small cub is pushed to one side at suckling times by her larger and better developed brothers and sisters and always last at feeds when they begin to wean onto solids then she will be in trouble. The question is will Zephyr recognize what is happening and make sure she gets her share or will she leave her to her fate?

Only time will tell but you can be sure that we will intervene if we have to and give her the best possible chance of survival.

Dear Skippy....

2007-12-24T18:43:00.000Z

Dear Skippy,

It's so nice to hear from our marsupial friends in Australia. I've asked around the wallabies here and one of the older ones (well, a very, very, old one indeed) seems to remember you from his days back in Oz and he reckons he recognized you on your visit here earlier this year!

Because of his great age his memory isn't that great but he describes Skippy as a bespectacled, motorcycle (was it a Moto Gucci?) loving biped with greying hair. Is that you? Do you still eat the banana skin rather than the banana? He's really pleased that your film career went so well but why haven't we seen you on the silver screen for so long?
If it's not too much trouble he asked me if you could provide him with a pawprinted photograph of yourself "in character". If you're standing next to Kylie at the time, so much the better.

Regarding your question about how they keep warm, the British Otters love the cold; the other day when there was a thick covering of ice on their ponds they all had great fun skating on it, breaking it and eating it. They let if refreeze and then did it all again a couple of hours later. The superb insulation qualities of their coat - two layers of fur sandwiching a layer of air - keep them warm as long as they keep it in good condition and aerated. I imagine its' like wearing a waterproof duvet! I think their feet and noses may be susceptible to the cold but the rest of them certainly isn't.

Some of the Asian Short Clawed Otters don't seem to mind the cold that much either; Sonny and Thor play on the ice quite readily in a similar way to their British cousins but the family stay in when it's cold and keep warm in their holt with their new cubs. Last week when we opened up their holt to check on things there was a blast of warm air from their bedding; wonderful, no wonder they didn't want to come out!

We cleared out the crocs from our ponds about 2.25 million years ago and haven't had any recent difficulties with them, not as far as I can remember anyway.

However, I will check our daily record sheets to be sure that I haven't forgotten anything but it may take me a little while - 2.25 million years times 365 days a year works out at quite a lot of daily records. . . . . . . .

On a serious note, the cubs are doing fine, deer look happy and the birds are a lot more comfotable now that the recent cold snap is over.

Hope you all have great Christmas, John.

Very briefly....

2007-12-20T17:41:00.000Z

Nice to hear from you Clara, how is everyone?

We saw all four of the cubs yesterday, three growing nicely and one a little smaller than the others but not significantly so. Their coats are still darkening and their eyes are still tight shut, they should open around Christmas Day. Zephyr is looking very well and so are the rest of the family despite the cold. Two of their older siblings, Tilly and Tiny, are especially attentive and seem to be giving their mum a good deal of support. This includes guard duty, but just because they can't leave the babies doesn't mean that they go hungry; no, their selfless parents, brother and sister bring food to them, usually before feeding themselves! A very caring sharing family. On occasion we have even seen them taking mouthfulls of water to each other and allowing a more senior member of the family to drink from their mouths.

Everyone else is fine and spending most of the time keeping themselves warm apart from Tino and Tamarisk who can't wait for their pond to freeze over so that they can smash the ice all over again- a game they don't ever tire of. Can't say I fancy the ice cold dip that they get when they suceed though.

Karulah, one of our Bengal Eagle Owls, is a very tame bird indeed. She was hatched in February 2007 and reared by her parents with four other owlets until she was four weeks old then one day when we went to check on their health she was the only one remaining. She was too small to have eaten all of her nest mates and we suspect one of her parents was the culprit. We took her home and hand reared her (see pictures). Our children, experienced owl rearers, took their fair share of feeding duties and still handle her regularly. One of their favourite games (before she could fly properly) was to come in from school, take off their socks and throw them across the floor for the owl to practice her pouncing technique! When she tired of that she game she would jump into the nearest lap, stick her head between your thighs and her bum in the air and have 40 winks! Not the behaviour you'd usually expect of a top predator.

Karulah underwent flying training and we free flew her for a couple of months until she developed some bad habits (like not coming down from rooftops and roosting in trees that were out of bounds). We stopped free flying her and she had about 2 months rest and we have begun to train her (from scratch) again. Hopefully she will have forgotten her bad behaviour and will do as she is told, time will tell.

By the way, the Bengal Eagle Owl hen has not returned to her eggs.

Beautiful days

2007-12-17T18:41:00.000Z

Hi Sophie, great to hear from you, but no cakes for you to test today!

Hello again everyone, great weather down here, but like everywhere else in the U.K. this week, very cold. We've even taken pity on the chickens, pheasants and peacocks and opened the doors of the barn so that they can have a more sheltered roost, although many of them have snubbed our invitation and continue to fly into the trees at night.

The Fallow Deer, most of which have thick, dark coats at this time of year, look stunning against the white of the frost. The adults have been coming down to be hand fed during the day but the five fawns are still a little stand offish.....until the last couple of days when the young pricket (6 months old) has drummed up the courage to approach the keepers and not run off when fruit is offered; not quite hand feeding yet but his confidence is obviously growing.

The Wallabies, also a bit peckish apparently, have allowed us to get very close to them while we work in the woods. Some of them even seem to be waiting for the banana skins we take for them after our lunch. Seems like a good relationship as they don't seem that interested in the actual bananas.

The cold weather has probably claimed some casualties in the form of the Bengal Eagle Owl eggs. The hen bird has been spending more and more time away from the nest over the last few days and we don't think she will continue to sit; it's just too cold and probably too early. We have increased her food supply to see if it makes any difference but we aren't optimistic.

The Family gave us a little cause for concern by not eating their evening meals last week but it may be that they chose warmth over food as all the adults seem healthy; coats shining glossily in the sunshine as they go about tidying up their holt (again) and chasing away the occasional passing peacock. We haven't seen the cubs for three days (they were 3 weeks old yesterday) because the straw in the holt has been transformed into a dome shape about the size of an upturned bucket. The cubs are probably in the middle of it keeping warm, it's a method we've seem otters use before so we won't intrude unless we think it's really necessary. Zephyr is back to being a picture of health, if it wasn't for the flecks of grey in her coat you'd never guess she was 12 years old last Monday!

William continues to demolish our new pen. A large hole has been excavated by one of the ponds and he can almost disappear completely into it. He's been very playful with Hilda and she continues to respond kindly to him. He still tries to steal her food but she's now more confident and is sticking up for herself - good girl!

We continue to clear the woods and have marked out the shape of the new otter pen (after a couple of trial runs). The stakes will start going in this week if it stays dry.

Our new aviary has now got its' wind proofing in one corner and we continue to work on it whenever time allows; we might even finish it before we open at this rate. Where did I put those perches......?

Brrrrr!

2007-12-11T20:36:00.000Z

Well, what a change. A weekend of rain, gales and hail to beautiful blue skies, wall to wall sunshine and no wind; I know which I prefer!

Although the heavy rain did cause us to flood quite a bit no major damage has been done and no big trees were blown down so after a little cleaning up on Monday we're set to cut a hole in the fencing, build a bridge and continue clearing a copse by the marsh lake of dead wood.

Once the copse is clear and some drainage work has been done we intend to build a new otter pen here. Once it's built we can move some of the otters out of their older pens and refurbish them. We've decided to leave a tree for William and Tino to climb. That's right, climb! These two British Otters are both expert climbers and if you can't see them on the ground or in the water look up and they'll be looking down on you from a convenient limb.

The family continue to do well and the cubs look good, though one is still smaller than the other three. Zephyr looked a little off colour today, and they didn't eat all the supper last night-a very unusual event so we'll be keeping a close eye on them .

William and Hilda (a pair of British Otters) are at last playing, cavorting and sleeping together. They're obviously settling in well together and enjoying each other's company. One victim of this though has been the waterworks in their enclosure; William (the show off) has broken the waterfall, blocked the drains and is digging holes everywhere. Lets hope he doesn't cause too much damage.

The wallabies all look well and don't seem to mind us working by the Marsh Lake too much as long as they get the odd banana skin. We have seen the Muscovy and Shelducks beginning to pair off and practice their courtship dances, very elaborate for the mature birds and a bit clumsy for the younger ones, still, with practice they'll all make Tamar Come Dancing. Lets hope it stays dry for a couple of days.

Bengal Eagle Owls on eggs!

2007-12-07T18:56:00.000Z

Well, what an awful day, raining stair rods, gales and heavy hail. It's rather quiet when we open up on days like this as most of the animals and birds are in their holts, boxes or shelters keeping warm and dry; can't blame them really can you?

A quick chat and the four of us (keepers that is) get on with the day; the three priorities at this time of day are feeding and checking the animals, checking the fencing and grounds for overnight damage due to the weather and getting on top of our water. We have a beautiful site with its' own spring fed stream and numerous other springs but that can be a problem on mornings like today; water everywhere and if we don't control the early signs of flooding we'll be in trouble later.

During the checks we see that the four Asian Short Clawed cubs are all dry and snug in the holt. One is clearly smaller than the rest but they are all obviously putting on weight. The other thing we notice is that they are already changing colour from the clean, silver grey fur they were born with to a darker, slightly dirtier looking coat that they will wear for the next couple of weeks. Their eyes are still tight shut but they do squeak from time to time and are being well cared for by Zephyr and the rest of the gang. Have Tilly and Tiny been trying to suckle their younger brothers and sisters? Both have sore looking teats, we'll have to keep an eye on that as neither of them can make any milk for the cubs until they've had cubs of their own. The family remove most of their bedding during the morning which is their way to let us know they want to be cleaned out. We duly take away the dirty bedding they've left on their balcony and replace with fresh straw which is quickly stowed away in an impressive team effort by everyone except Zephyr, who was presumably organising things inside, out of our sight.

William and Hilda, a pair of British Otters, come out together and play for half an hour or so during the morning. A good sign, we'd like them to breed but they haven't been taking much notice of one another since they were placed in the same pen three weeks ago.

An hour and a half later we've cleaned, cleared and checked and all is well, floodwater receding and no big trees came down last night which means we can get on with more constructive jobs.

Mandy and I check on our pair of Bengal Eagle Owls; they had 7 eggs in their nest 10 days ago and we're curious to see if the female will sit as it's rather early to breed, even for this pair. We get a surprise when we look because now there are 8! Looks like owlets before Christmas if the eggs are fertile.

During the day we near the end of constructing a new aviary and noticed that the ducks were dabbling contendedly on the lawn now that it had stopped raining. What a pretty sight. Then reality hits home, within an hour the lawn was gone and had been replaced by a muddy bog occupied by 20 or so very contented looking ducks. Who's idea was it to buy in ducks? Oh well, at least they're happy....

Our first blog

2007-12-06T18:15:00.000Z

About 20 minutes ago my wife asked me how you set up a blog, and a few minutes later here we are!

Perhaps I should introduce us and supply a little background.... my wife Mandy and I saw the Centre was for sale in February 2006, we visited, fell in love with the animals and location, and by the end of April we had bought it! A bit of a change for an ex-policeman and a wife more used to teaching in a nursery school, but there you go, sometimes you've just got to have a change of scenery (in our case from Surrey to Cornwall via a year on a farm in Dorset).

Some of you may have known the Centre as the Cornwall branch of the Otter Trust. We don't intend to make too many changes, the place has a beautifully peaceful atmosphere that we don't want to lose, but it does need some updating which we have already started, more about that some other time, I'm sure you'd rather hear about our animals.

They range from the secretive (Muntjac Deer), to "in your face" (most of our British Otters but particularly Hilda, Tino and Tamarisk) and include a confused Karulah (a Bengal Eagle Owl) who really should be shy but would much rather come and meet everyone and show herself off.

As well as the British Otters we also provide a home for some of their cousins, the Asian Short Clawed Otter. Our "family" consists of dad Raymond, mum Zephyr, 2 year olds Tilly, Tom and Tiny and little Solo, who until last Sunday was the youngster of the group at 1 year old. What happened last Sunday (the 25th November) you ask??? Well Zephyr, at the grand age of 11 years and 11 months (a very respectable age) produced 4 beautiful, tiny silver furred cubs. We are leaving them as much to themselves as we can at the moment so we don't know what sex the cubs are, but they have grown from the size of my middle finger to 4 fat sausages in just over a week so things are looking well although there is one who is noticably smaller than the rest who we are a little concerned about.

The new arrivals have got us hoping that the weather won't be too cold or wet for too long. That, however, doesn't present any problems for Honey, a 6 month old British Otter, who relishes the cold and the wet. She's been very shy until the last week but has started to approach us at feeding and is learning to come to her name. She has just started to argue with her mum, Harriet, and we reckon the cub eats about 60% of all the food we give the pair, greedy little thing! Poor Harriet!

Well, I'd better go and do some feeding before it gets too late. Bye for now.