Week 8

Can it be week 8 already (even if I missed one?)! As usual, I really enjoyed the day, although for once it was not sunny but cold. I leapt at the chance to do the rodents again, as it is usually warm in there. Pippa was not in her cage, and I discovered that the rodent house is now open again after its refurbishment! I went along and had a look in the lunch hour, and it looks great. There were lots of creatures I did not recognise, and no spare places, so I asked Kate where all the rodents would go. She explained that they had too many, so some would be off to other places. I said I'd grown quite fond of them! After providing the various mice and rats with clean water and fresh food and bedding, I swept up the sawdust, and took Pippa's cage outside to wash it down. After this, I went into the veterinary room, also nicely warm, and cleaned out 5 units there, two of which I believe had had snakes in and smelt fairly bad... One poorly snake was sitting quietly in its vivarium.

After lunch, Amy and I were given the exciting opportunity of going in the "preds" or predators' area. This involved carefully unlocking and locking one door, before opening another, with Kate's words ringing in our ears about not wanting to let an ocelot loose on the public... In fact, we were just working along the corridor, which runs at the back of all the enclosures opposite the cafe. We had to clean up and replenish food and water for the red squirrels, then clean their window and the sides of their enclosure (metal). This involved ducking beneath some carefully positioned branches in the centre of the enclosure. There are 4 squirrels, and we saw them briefly when we were first there, but they are shy creatures and they soon hid in their boxes for the rest of our stay. Hence no photos of them.... Here is a baby wallaby instead.

Once this was done, we had more cleaning to do in the back of the rodent house. I found out the parrot is called Oscar; he is looking better. Amy stayed to cut some lettuce up for Adam's reptiles, and I did some sweeping and tidying in the back of the rodent house. I mentioned to Kate how nice it was that they were all so grateful and offered praise so regularly. She seemed surprised that not everyone experiences this at work, and I wonder if Les has encouraged them all to be so positive.

Once again, there was no sign of the beavers. But the coatis were quite active, and I enjoyed watching them running up and down. The red pandas may have been popular, but I think their replacements will be just as appreciated.

This time, I was pleased to be able to take some photos of the soay lambs - they have all survived. I was also amused to hear the lemurs making a right racket from across the way. No baby lemur as yet for the ring-tailed family...