Herons and Buzzards

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

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.