Adventures in Zoo Land

There was a shortage of tiger cubs on Friday when I was at the zoo, but plenty of baby gorilla action. This is Alika following mum round.



And here we have triple tier gorllas, Mjukuu with her stepson Gernot on her bck, and her daughter Alika on the top!



Finally Bhanu is in with two of his ladies. There is a hate-hate relationship with the third, RUbi, so she's not with them. This is either Heidi or Indi. I can't tell the difference.



He is a very handsome boy.



I don't think he was evacuating his bladder but I'm not sure. It was not easy to get a good view.



He paused to look up at his fans.



The he looked into where we think there was food being prepared.



Melati was in a very bad mood, not for the first time. She's been aggressive to the keepers and to JaeJae, who could swat hereasily, but is fortunately too good-natured to do so. After this feed, the shutter between this half of the enclosure and the other half with JaeJae in was shut. The keepers were a bit sad that this meant keeping Jae away from the cubs, as they think the cubs prefer him and his laid-back-ness to their mother!

Strange Days

And a strange film. In which he dies yet again.

Exercise Plus

My lovely cubs decided to come put and play, and play, and play on Friday. I really want to get some video of them, but there are always so many people going googoo eyed at them and blocking the view.

One thing's for sure, everyone who saw them thought they had their money's worth at the zoo that day.

When I arrived, one baby was annoying dad. In the wild, the cubs would be unlikely to meet dad, but JaeJae is such a softy, and he loves mum Melati so much, they decided not to separate them this time round.



When dad had had enough, he went back inside.



When mum saw baby trying to follow, she was on guard immediately.



"Daddy, where did you go?"



Who's a pretty cub, then?



"What mischief can we get up to next?" The boy, Achilles, is on the right, the girl, Carys (?spelling) is the paler cub on the left.



Who needs toys when you can fight with a smelly sack?



Up for a fight.



A pause in cub hostilities.



These brave little warriors are still barely three months old. It's impossible not to love them.

Steal This Movie

This film told me a lot more about the 60s than I ever learned living through them. LIke who Abbie Hoffman was...

Big Cat Adventure

All we saw of the male lion this time was his retreating bum.



The keeper with one of the best jobs in the world was feeding the lionesses through the wire, training them to do what was necessary to allow their keepers and the vet to make sure all is well.



They are a beautiful trio, but no wonder the three feisty sisters intimidate their potential mate.



JaeJae was showing himself off.






Two brave cubs aged just two-and-a-half months came out to play.

Staten Island

Weird film but I enjoyed it.

Brave baby tigers

I took a friend to the zoo on Wednesday. We didn't manage to see the baby goillas, and the male lion didn't put in an appearance. But the tiger cubs were lured out when their mother tried to get a snack, and one even almost dared to play with dad's tail. Considering that dad is half as big again as mum, that's a very brave thing to do. Sadly I didn't get a picture of that. The viewing platforms were so crowded, the distance too great, and the incidents so brief. But cub(s) and dad I did get. (I'm still not clever enough to tell if I have a picture of each cub, or two of the same one. Theye didn't appear together.) They are still jsut two months old!

Spanish Judges

Another film I didn't really care for. He has a wonderful head, but I still prefer him with hair.

On Safari

There are quite a few places where you can go on safari without leaving the UK. One is what used to be called Port Lympne Wild Animal Park - now Port Lympne Reserve (Lympne is pronounced "Lim").

The park is on hundreds of acres of Kent hillside, and you go round in huge tractors pulling huge trailers. There always seems the possibility that you might all topple down the hill on one of the hairpin bends, though it's never happened.

It's not easy to get good photos on the safari, where there are giraffe (including a new baby), rhinos, all sorts of hoofstock, all roaming free in the countryside. They are often distant, the ride is bumpy, and if you don't lose your lunch, you might lose your camera!

Of course, the animals who need protecting - or who we need to be protected from - are still enclosed.

The snow leopard was being secretive.



Tiger mum was sleeping but her two grown-up daughters were alert.







The tapir was happy to mooch round near the humans having a drink.



Two fossas were happily snuggled up together.



Another in a different enclosure paced about displaying his impressive manhood (though catching that on camera proved rather difficult).



My friend and I needed to send for the minibus to get us back up the hill. The driver was hilarious. His best trick was stopping beside some young people perched on the handrail of the walkway back to the entrance eating their ice creams. He told them they were loitering, and should move on - which they did, despite our hilarity at the joke. He then told them he would be driving slowly up the hill to check on them, so they must not stop again!

Nice to know young people can still respect authority, even when it is having a laugh at their expense...

We were lucky in the day we chose, because three days later some prat with a digger on the back of a lorry managed to demolish a footbridge across the motorway we used to get there.

Luckily only one person was injured, with broken ribs - a motorcyclist who saw it coming and threw himself off his bike. The other carriageway was the busier one. But the whole road was shut for miles for over 24 hours on a busy holiday weekend. I can't think the safari park was very busy on what should have been one of its busiest days of the year. I hope that driver's pleased with himself.

Signs of Life

Such a good-looking boy.
 

At last - Bhanu!

A couple of years ago the female Asiatic lion at London Zoo had to be put to sleep. Her faithful mate was moved to another zoo, as the only females they had to stay with him were his three daughters. So the girls were moved to their sister establishment, Whipsnade Animal Park, while their enclosure was rebuilt as an Indian village.

Since their return, they have spent all their time in this great new place in exactlyt the same place they used to lie with their mother.

A new male, Bhanu, has been introduced to engage their interest. Sadly, they haven't engaged his. He lived till now with his brother, who has settled in well with a single female in another zoo, but Bhanu hasn't really risen to the challenge of of making himself the boss of three feisty girls.

After a tip from a member of staff that he deigns to join the world for a feed at about 2pm, I made my way to the feeding place, where the handsome Bhanu dutifully appeared.

 


Nearby, a Hanuman langur - a species previously unknown to me - relaxed his elegant body in the shade.

Salute of the Jugger

This is the kind of movie the young, tall, muscular Vincent was made to be in.

Gorilla babies

I took my friend to see the tiger cubs the other day. She arrived quite late and I was pretty shattered, so in the end I left her to it. But not before I caught the two baby gorillas on camera. The younger one - the little boy - was having what may have been his first climb, watched over by his half-sister.


Eventually Mjukuu, the mother of the 18-month-old girl, unhooked the 8-month-old boy (not her son, but her daughter's kidnapped half-brother) and took him to safety. Meawhile, her little girl had to look on, which I found moving in a rather sad way.

The Salton Sea

Not a good look. Not my kind of film.