December update

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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.