(oce)lots of work

This week was very busy; I started by letting out the rabbits, guinea pigs, turkey and peacock, and I replenishing their water and food, taking back the old food bowls and washing them up. The guinea pigs are so funny when they get their food: they start squeaking as soon as you arrive with the carrots and other veg. Imagine 18 guinea pigs squeaking, it is a lovely welcome. I slopped half the bucket of water down me, as usual, and had to get half way inside the rabbit hutch to get the food bowl out.

I then did the water for all the small mammals - "on shows and off shows" - there were some desert hamster babies: tiny pink things. The sugar glider was in the corner again and looked up at me with wide eyes! There are some tiny new rainforest frogs off show: beautiful colours - one is bright, bright green.

The rest of the day was cleaning up: spot cleaning (ie scooping up poop) in the sheep, goats and wallabies, - this time with new volunteer, Holly, who was really nice, and is doing the volunteering off her own bat, which is impressive. We got on well and it was nice to have company again as I was beginning to miss Ariane. We ended the day by cleaning all the windows round the "pred" block; which gave us a nice chance to look at the lemurs, the red squirrels, and the ocelot, who was curious enough to follow us round and come right close to the glass. She really is beautiful.

One thing I observed at lunchtime: there are notices (although rather small) that ask the public not to feed the animals. This is because the animals get the food that they require, and feeding them random things might not be good for them. But in spite of this, a whole gaggle of kids and parents were busy feeding leaves to the soays, which seemed happy enough to eat them all up. What I thought was a bit much was how some of the dads were pulling whole branches off trees and dividing them up... Well if the sheep are ill it was half their own fault for being greedy...!

Sheep comparison

There are 5 types of sheep at the Nature Centre - I bet you never realised that!

My favourite (if I had to choose) are the Mouflon - probably because the two Mouflon lambs are just beautiful with their caramel coloured coats. They are a rare species, and originally came from the islands of Corsica, Sardina and Cypress, where they live in mountainous/rocky areas.  The male mouflon at the Centre has a good pair of horns and has been separated from his two females and the two lambs as he can be quite defensive and start butting both them and people. He went for Alex once and apparently the visitors cheered the ram on!

Soay
The Soay are a larger group, with dark brown wool. The male also has horns and can run at you if it is defending the lambs. There are 7 or 8 lambs, and I was told that the sheep weren't so great at keeping them clean and the staff have to make sure that their wool is not matted or messy. Originally they come from the isle of Soay. Its ancestry is thought to go back earlier than other sheep. Soay means Island of Sheep in Norse.

Icelandic and Jacob sheep
There are 2 icelandic and one jacob sheep who are in the first enclosure when you arrive. They have thick wool and the jacob sheep has spots. They have recently been sheared and look tremendously different without their fleeces!

Cameroon
Two cameroon sheep (both males) live near the entrance. They are a beautiful browny tan colour; one has horns and the other does not. Their bleat is very distinctive, quite low and loud. They are, of course, from Africa. They are a bit more goat-like in appearance, with short fleeces and long faces.

Coati Monday

The title is a pun on coatimundi, the full name for coatis. Today I learnt that there are loads of them at the Iguacu waterfalls on the border of Brazil / Argentina.  They have become tame, and run up to everybody  and try to get into your bags and pockets to get food! I think ours would take your finger off if you tried to get too close.

Tomorrow at the Nature Centre there is an inspection by a group that will allow the NC to join in further participation in breeding programmes etc. So yesterday, instead of staff trying to find tasks for us to do, they were lining them up. While I was doing a task for Neil, Kate came along to borrow me, and when I had just started Kate's task, Colin had one ready for me. So it was all go.  Ariane seems to have finished, which is a shame because we did not have chance to say goodbye. :-( (It's more fun having another volunteer to work with, so get volunteering!.)

I started off filling up various water troughs - first the mouflon (the lambs are growing up and look gorgeous with their caramel coloured wool), then the wallabies. I gave this trough a good scrub inside and out with a scourer. Thankfully there are various taps and hoses round the centre, so I do not have to walk far with buckets of water. When I do carry water around I invariably slop half of it down my leg, and over the ground.  The cameroon sheep also got a clean trough of water.

After that, it was over to the small mammals house (formerly rodent house), where I was given the extensive task of a full clean of the "off shows", ie the rodents behind the scenes. This involved emptying each tank of sawdust, water bowl, etc and dipping it in a bucket of soapy water, then drying it off. There are about 24 tanks of mice, including some empty ones, and then another lot of rats, and the mad lemmings (forever jumping up and nibbling their bars). It took me ages. It involved transferring the rodents into a fresh tank, before cleaning their tank. This took some doing, as some of them were not keen to go into the holding tube, to be moved into the new tank. They are so fast and tiny, the priority is not to lose any. I felt quite bad disturbing the sleeping dormice, but they are absolutely beautiful, with short tufty tails.  It was far harder to move the rats - they did not want to be picked up, and they did not want to move, and who am I to argue. One lot had babies - tiny blind pink things.

Once this mammoth task was over, I had to do the water in the "on-shows"- those in the tanks viewed by the public. Pippa, my favourite ground squirrel, was full of life and came up to the hatch to try to nip me (thanks, Pip!) There are 4 beautiful tiny harvest mice, who scurried away when I reached in for the water. And when I opened the hatch of the bizarrely named "sugar glider", its furry face and big eyes were right next to me! (pic: wikipedia)  Apparently they eat sweet sap and, like "flying" squirrels, glide through the air!

I was pleased to see the new arrivals on show: two large African Spurred Tortoises, and the mouse lemurs - so called because they are tiny! They are also nocturnal. Come and visit them!

I ended the day on a high: after putting the rabbits, peacock, turkey and delightful guinea pigs to bed, I braved Sid the goose (with a broom for safety). Sid must be getting used to me, as he walked obediently to his house. Little did I realise the door was shut, so he waddled off, and we had to have a second go, but in he went! No hissing, no attacks... I was very pleased :-)

Sacred Ibis

In the previous post, I was asked in the comments why the ibis are sacred. I had never questioned it, but it is really interesting to find out the answer, and to read more about these graceful birds.

"This species is now extinct in Egypt where it was venerated in ancient times. The ancient Egyptians believed that their god Thoth sometimes came to earth in the form of a Sacred Ibis. Thoth, a scribe of the gods, was the inventor of writing and measurer of time who symbolized wisdom and knowledge. This ibis is depicted in many murals and mummified specimens are common in burial places; over 1.5 million birds were found in one group of tombs."


This is from the Oakland Zoo website (California) http://www.oaklandzoo.org/ which has many interesting pages on its own animals.

Another blog reader sent me a link to information about mummified ibises, which you can see at the British Museum website, with a fascinating photo. And here is an image of Thoth, taken from Wikipedia.

Predator Round

I have meant to update before now but have not been for a fortnight, and for the last couple of visits I have done many of the usual things: rodents, sheep, etc. Alex has finished and I think Ariane can't have long left either.

Today's visit though was thoroughly worthwhile and very enjoyable. Due to mad-sounding staff issues, courtesy of the Council, it sounds like not all of the staff may be able to stay on. So, presumably as a caution, Colin let me go on the "predator round" with Sam today, so that I have experience of that.  Firstly I cut up and weighed out a selection of fruit for the lemurs, that would be a nice fruit salad for me and you.
It is done to a strict order, and there is a sheet which you can follow to ensure that everything is done. First of all we went to the sacred ibis, and I swept out their water pool and gave them their food. Sam saw to the lynx, as volunteers are not allowed in with them. Then on to the otters - there are 5 of them and they were squeaking as soon as they saw us coming. There are various tasks to perform in each enclosure: replacing water and food bowls with new ones; replacing bedding or spot-cleaning the enclosure for droppings and litter; cleaning the windows. As I was cleaning the windows, I felt something nudge my ankle. Looking round, I found four otters lined up behind me, curious as anything, and one started biting my trainer. Sam said to shoo them away but they kept coming back!
We also fed the coatis. These 3 south american animals are very appealing and made tiny squeaky noises. They too were inquisitive and ran round looking at me, as I looked for droppings. I'd scattered their food around the enclosure, and they were busy running round finding bits to crunch.
There is a whole block of "preds" so you can go from one enclosure to another, within the safety of a secure corridor. Sam did the ocelot, a female, and then I cleaned the windows in the wildcat enclosure, barn owls, and ring-tailed lemurs. We gave the lemurs bits of banana - they are a family of 3 and they came right over. They have very bright orange eyes, grey fur and dark stripy tails and were making a sort of gulping noise.
After the lemurs, the meerkats. They are much smaller than I think, and, like the otters, were curious enough to come up behind me while I tried to clean the windows, and nip at my shoes! I could hear people on the other side of the glass making remarks about the meerkat on the advert...
More than one person today joked to their child that I was a human in an enclosure, as it seemed like that to them from their side of the glass. Sam said it stopped being funny quite quickly. I thought that people were more interested in watching me clean the windows than looking at the animals...
After sweeping the predator corridor, the next part of the round is the bald-headed ibis. These too make an interesting noise. Two tragopan (tragg-o-pan) share their enclosure: the male is brightly coloured, while the female is darker (the usual in the bird world).  I removed droppings, and also feathers. It was tempting to keep one: they look dark but have a beautiful green sheen.

In the afternoon, I would have happily helped out again but Neil asked if I could do the wallabies. I topped up various animals' water (it's been a hot weekend) and then cleared out the (smelly) wallabies. I saw something moving in the straw! I realised it would not be anything scary, and moved the straw to one side to see. It was a big shiny black beetle - presumably a dung beetle! I left it to get on.

I do not understand the council for the proposed methods of cutting costs; the staff are all very dedicated and knowledgeable and work hard. I realised that I could not keep my own field of animals (which was once my dream) without having many staff and/or volunteers. Plus I have discovered that working with straw makes my eczema itch and my lungs feel like I can't breathe. So that's a pain! But finding out more about the predators this morning and getting close to them was really interesting and I feel privileged to be allowed in with them. But of course, anyone who volunteers can also have this opportunity.

Week 12

I discovered that both Ariane and Alex were not coming in - I think they both have exams - so this left just me, as Amy has now moved to Wednesday.  I spent the day helping Kate, so it was back to the newly done "small mammals" house, to help out there. I was to give them all clean water, make the substrate (bedding/flooring) look nice, and clean the inside and outside glass of the tanks on display.  The behind-the-scenes rodents have now all moved across from the schoolroom to the small mammals, and this is much better than the temporary place they had before. The smaller mice had new homes. After I had realised I had a leaky bucket of water, and taken it back, I soon replenished the water and moved on to the animals on  display.

It proved much harder than I thought to clean the glass inside the tanks- each has a hatch that you can open at the back, but it was not easy to reach across with the squeegee to the front - sometimes bits of twig got in the way, and other times I was worried about letting the rodent jump out and escape. There is the added fun of the public watching you, and most times I felt I had made the glass worse than before I started.

The funniest thing was when I got to the tenrecs- the madagascan hedgehogs. There are several of them, and I  was confident they were not going to escape, as they were sitting quietly, so I opened the hatch, reached across, and cleaned the glass easily. I withdrew my hand, and began to close the hatch door. Only when it started to swing shut, I realised with horror, that it had a small shelf on the inside, and on that shelf there was a tenrec! I had swung it out over the floor, cleaned the glass and swung it back in before realising! The poor thing. This really gave me a funny turn, and I had to be really careful with the rest of them. Even lovely Pippa, the ground squirrel, looked keen to escape, so I had to give her glass a miss.

On the outside, it was much easier to clean, and I could see where I needed to go back and clean the inside...I saw the Gambian pouched rat - we are not allowed to open this rat's hatch, as it is half blind and might bite. It was quite big, and looked like it could barely see.

At lunchtime, I had a look at the coatis - they really are fast becoming a favourite of mine. They are so appealing and were quite active, so I watched them running around and up and down the trees.

In the afternoon, I was cleaning the glass in the invertebrate house. I have not been in here as a volunteer, and I was a bit freaked out by the size of the salmon pink tarantula.(Apparently, she can be a bit grumpy!) I told myself not to be daft, as it was behind glass, and was not going to "get me!" so I cleaned the glass (there are also cockroaches, a smaller tarantula, giant snails, and more!) I had to clean it very gently so as not to disturb the creatures, or dislodge the tank.

I also had to do the squirrel enclosure, where luckily half of it is sheltered, as it absolutely bucketed down!

The new tortoises and lemurs have not arrived yet.

Week 11

Week 11 was baking hot and Colin had the good sense to say we could wrap the top of our overalls round our waist; I spent the entire day cleaning out stables and enclosures.
First of all, Toby and I cleared out the pygmy goats' bedding - they are quite calm and let you get on with it, while they go and eat grass. I found that their straw had loads of bits in it, and the whole thing made me sneeze for ages. After we'd finished, we found Neil, to ask for a new task, and I mentioned that I thought I had a straw allergy. Not ideal when you're volunteering there, but perhaps there is a face mask for next time.
After our break, I was expecting Toby to come back and join me in the sheep paddock - the usual thing of clearing up the poop with a couple of short handled shovels. Not a bad job, but it gets so hot in the sun that I was tempted to join the sheep in the shady corner. Toby never appeared, and I learned later that he only does 2 hours in the morning - surely it is hardly worth coming  in for, but that is not to say that he doesn't work hard when he is there.
A baby blue tit had fallen out of its nest or tree, and was on the ground by the sheep pen. A visitor asked me about what to do with it, and I realised that as a worker, the public expects you to know what to do with all animals. I thought that you are supposed to leave baby birds  alone, so that their parent can come back to them. When humans touch them, I believe it can put them off. Anyway, I later saw a man lift it up and throw it back into the tree, which seemed to work, so what do I know.
More stables followed, with Ariane and I cleaning out the mouflon hut - luckily the ram is next door, and we got to see the 2 lambs, who are growing fast and a gorgeous caramel colour.
Later that day, we went to investigate what Alex was doing with Colin and the others. They were preparing a small hut near the ibis, for the promised new arrivals of giant tortoises and mouse lemurs. Apparently the latter are nocturnal, so it is debatable how much of them the public will see...