July Update

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

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

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

Lola

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

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

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!

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...

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.