Saturday, August 18, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
One Determined Lady
Lady? Well, perhaps not!
Scottish wild cat keeper Neville told us yesterday about his Bengal cat.
Bengal cats are a relatively new breed, and they are incredibly beautiful:
Neville acquired his from the daughter of the original owner of the two animal parks, millionaire casino owner John Aspinall. He and his wife looked after the cat soon after she was bought while her owner went on holiday. His wife became attached, so when Ms Aspinall was concerned at her behaviour in her place in London, she asked them to adopt the creature so she could go outside.
Of course, in reality, she was just coming into season. She disappeared for seven days, and came back with a large black tomcat in tow, pregnant.She had 3 kittens.
The vet advised they get her spayed as soon as she stopped lactating, but as soon as the kittens were eight weeks old she disappeared again, and the cycle repeated itself. This time she had 7 babies.
They decided to keep her in an enclosure in the garden, but once she realised what they had in mind she went missing ahead of her season.
By the time they managed to get her "fixed" she had given birth to 27 kittens. One determined little kittie!
As the family also keeps Maine Coons, I'm not sure if it was one of them, or one of the Bengal's kittens, who was so big he had to have a dog collar, as a cat one big enough could not be found.
Scottish wild cat keeper Neville told us yesterday about his Bengal cat.
Bengal cats are a relatively new breed, and they are incredibly beautiful:
Neville acquired his from the daughter of the original owner of the two animal parks, millionaire casino owner John Aspinall. He and his wife looked after the cat soon after she was bought while her owner went on holiday. His wife became attached, so when Ms Aspinall was concerned at her behaviour in her place in London, she asked them to adopt the creature so she could go outside.
Of course, in reality, she was just coming into season. She disappeared for seven days, and came back with a large black tomcat in tow, pregnant.She had 3 kittens.
The vet advised they get her spayed as soon as she stopped lactating, but as soon as the kittens were eight weeks old she disappeared again, and the cycle repeated itself. This time she had 7 babies.
They decided to keep her in an enclosure in the garden, but once she realised what they had in mind she went missing ahead of her season.
By the time they managed to get her "fixed" she had given birth to 27 kittens. One determined little kittie!
As the family also keeps Maine Coons, I'm not sure if it was one of them, or one of the Bengal's kittens, who was so big he had to have a dog collar, as a cat one big enough could not be found.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
One of those special days
I took my friend to Port Lympne Wild Animal Park today. we saw some wonderful things.
There was the dusky langur with her ginger baby:
I'd never seen bush dogs before. They made a sweet little high-pitched noise, but I'll spare you the horror story of how they co-operate to hunt prey:
The male Siberian tiger has huge paws, but instead of using them to walk on, he sticks to lying by the fence and using them as a pillow:
He managed to stir enough to give us a glimpse of his big face:
One female was displaying her amazing stripes:
The other did some rolling over and tummy-baring, then eventually showed us her lovely face:
We'd especially wanted to see the Scottish wild cats, but they didn't appear on the site map. A member of staff told us that the new park set-up meant they were off display, but she arranged for the keeper to meet up with us to go and see them. A couple of years ago the same man had taken me around the park to make up for the fact that I had missed the cats on a visit because they were not signposted, and my friends and I could not find them. He's lovely - the stories he told us were funny, amazing, I could regale you with them forever. But instead, let's see the female wild cat, Skye:
She's like a super-beautiful pussy cat. Her would-be mate, Sid, has a real wild cat look. He was in one of the overhead walkways that were built for them:
He did relax a bit after a while and let his ears return to closer to their normal position:
These pictures were taken inside the outer enclosure.
Sadly Sid is minus a toe. They moved in another female for a while to mate with him (he and skye have yet to produce young) and when she left and they were reunited, Skye bit his toe and broke it, so it had to be amputated!
We failed to see the newly arrived fossa because the keeper, Neville, couldn't persuade him out. They are odd-looking creatures, I would love to have seen one:
We also missed the new Lynx cubs. we couldn't go back to the area of the park where these two species were kept, because it is a huge and hilly site and we were exhausted. There are safari trucks and trailers which will take you to the bottom of the site, but the harder task of getting back up the huge hills, at the end of a tiring day, is left to visitors' feet. Makes no sense to me.
Anyway, here are some other lynx cubs from the internet, so as not to disappoint you:
I'd never seen bush dogs before. They made a sweet little high-pitched noise, but I'll spare you the horror story of how they co-operate to hunt prey:
The male Siberian tiger has huge paws, but instead of using them to walk on, he sticks to lying by the fence and using them as a pillow:
He managed to stir enough to give us a glimpse of his big face:
One female was displaying her amazing stripes:
The other did some rolling over and tummy-baring, then eventually showed us her lovely face:
We'd especially wanted to see the Scottish wild cats, but they didn't appear on the site map. A member of staff told us that the new park set-up meant they were off display, but she arranged for the keeper to meet up with us to go and see them. A couple of years ago the same man had taken me around the park to make up for the fact that I had missed the cats on a visit because they were not signposted, and my friends and I could not find them. He's lovely - the stories he told us were funny, amazing, I could regale you with them forever. But instead, let's see the female wild cat, Skye:
She's like a super-beautiful pussy cat. Her would-be mate, Sid, has a real wild cat look. He was in one of the overhead walkways that were built for them:
He did relax a bit after a while and let his ears return to closer to their normal position:
These pictures were taken inside the outer enclosure.
Sadly Sid is minus a toe. They moved in another female for a while to mate with him (he and skye have yet to produce young) and when she left and they were reunited, Skye bit his toe and broke it, so it had to be amputated!
We failed to see the newly arrived fossa because the keeper, Neville, couldn't persuade him out. They are odd-looking creatures, I would love to have seen one:
We also missed the new Lynx cubs. we couldn't go back to the area of the park where these two species were kept, because it is a huge and hilly site and we were exhausted. There are safari trucks and trailers which will take you to the bottom of the site, but the harder task of getting back up the huge hills, at the end of a tiring day, is left to visitors' feet. Makes no sense to me.
Anyway, here are some other lynx cubs from the internet, so as not to disappoint you:
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Family Values - Day 12
Thinking about what tactic to try next. Women are much easier to work out, Bobby, at least for hotties like you.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Family Values - Day 11
Having got to the end of the scheduled posts for this episode because the rest of the pictures had apparently disappeared from the album, I checked back and found they had reappeared!
Onwards and upwards.
Bobby's face shows so many emotions here: concern; worry he won't find the girl in time; shock at the horror of this man. Any more emotions you can identify in this apparently simple expression?
Onwards and upwards.
Bobby's face shows so many emotions here: concern; worry he won't find the girl in time; shock at the horror of this man. Any more emotions you can identify in this apparently simple expression?