Animal Magic

Hello! I hope you're all well. I am good. I had a fun weekend. My hooman step sisters were here this weekend. It's E's 6th birthday on Wednesday so we celebrated with her.


We went to a really cool place called Cotswold Wildlife Park. There were so many different animals there. I couldn't believe how many different animals there are in the world, and how many of them are in danger because of humans destroying their habitats.


It's a cool place because us dogs are allowed in most areas of the park apart from the bat belfry (eek, who wants to be near scawie bats anyway), the farmyard area where animals are roaming loose and the reptile house. Apart from that we can see all the animals, cool!


First we went to see the Humboldt penguins. They were really cool guys. They come from Peru and Chile and are a smaller breed of penguins, weighing around 4kg when grown.


We watched them being fed (mackerel, yummy). These 3 were obviously the greedy ones of the group as they were waiting at the door to the keeper's office where they could obviously smell the fish being prepared!

After they had been fed they stand and digest the fish which they store in their gullet until it forms a mushy fish paste, yum!

We also saw lemurs. They come from Madagascar. The park has two types, ring tailed and black and white ruffed. These are the ring tailed as you hopefully worked out! They are omnivores, basically meaning they will eat anything!

Next we went to see the meerkats. As it was quite a chilly day, a lot of them were hiding, but this little guy had come to have a sniff to see what was going on.

Most of his mates were inside their house. This one was really camping it up for the camera! They look cute, but are very territorial and will fight to the death in the wild if a rival group of meerkats try to take over their territory.

We found more fish eaters! These are otters and they were having a great time splashing about and eating their fishy dinner.

Look at this cute little baby with his mum. He got his own fish when they were fed and there was no way any of the bigger otters were going to get it from him!

I asked if I could share a fish but there was no chance!

I can't remember what this animal is. Maybe one of you will recognise it. They look very chilled out sitting on their rock watching the world go by.

Next we went to look at the monkeys. They were so great at using their hands, feet and tails to swing across the cages, nets and trees.

E & J thought this bird only had one leg, so dad explained that they like to stand like that. Can you see the fluffy baby in the nest?

This is a great hornbill. Isn't that beak quite something? They use it to amplify their call, which can be heard for 800 metres!

Here's a beautiful male peacock. Sadly he didn't put his tail feathers up to show us the full glory of his plumage, but he still looked pretty spectacular! He was just roaming around the car park when we went back to the car to get our lunch!

Here is dad looking at the tortoises. They had very bumpy shells. They were munching on lots of lettuce and tomato.

Here's an iguana. He was so still he almost looked like a statue. I bet he can move fast if he wants to catch some prey, or if an animal is chasing him though!

I wasn't allowed in the reptile house, but the girls told me there were lots of ants, spiders, stick insects (wow, I would have liked to have seen those!) and snakes! It was hard to get photos as everything was behind glass.

Here is a pair of alligators! There was also a crocodile who was sitting under a waterfall as if he was having a shower, but sadly the photo didn't come out as it was just too dark. Mum and dad used to call me The CrocoDALE when I was teething, but these guys have some serious teeth going on!

These guys are siamangs. They are the largest gibbons. There was a teeny baby but he was dashing all over the place and we had no chance of a non-blurred photo of him!

And here's another monkey...oh whoops, that's E playing in the park. It looked like a huge agility course but I wasn't allowed to play on it, boo!

I could have stood on here while it span round but noooo, had to sit and watch.

These are zebus. They are the scared cow of India. Can you see the hump they have on their backs?

Here's a big fat piggy. I bet he has some good pork ribs I could munch on. Oops, sorry mum!

They had very bristly hair and were very stinky. Look at his cute curly tail!

And here's a little billy goat. Cute huh? Wouldn't want to get too close to those horns though. His beard is even more impressive than mine, that's why he's looking so smug I think!

There was another fat piggy. Can you see his big tusky tooth sticking out? he was dreaming and his mouth was twitching away. He must have been dreaming about eating.

I have seen these animals in the pet shop. They're guinea pigs. There were lots of them and they were all going "wee, wee, wee".

Mum used to have guinea pigs when she was little, and likes these scruffy looking ones the best.

There were also bunny rabbits like Simba has at home. These 3 definitely look like they're plotting something!

And there was a HUGE rabbit like Sunshade's Georgie. I asked him if he knew Georgie, but he looked at me like I was stupid!

Back outside there were some zebras. I liked their stripes a lot, though they did make my eyes go a bit funny when I stared at them lots. They originally come from East Africa.

This one looks like he's a bit camera shy! 2 of them were playing chase and were racing around.

Wow, just look at this guy. he's a southern white rhino and was just huge! They can weigh up to 3600kg! He had obviously found a great muddy puddle, lucky thing.

E & J posed with him. The beauties and the beast.

There were also ostriches. These guys are very tall. They can reach speeds of up to 43 miles per hour and their kick could kill a human, yikes.

We went to see the lions and leopards. The lions were all high up in the branches snoozing, and we could only just see the leopard having an afternoon nap.

After all those and many more animals we sat down for a well deserved ice lolly. Well, for the hoomans, poor little me didn't get anything.

On the way back to the car we saw the Bactrian camels from SE China. Their humps are full of fat so they can survive out in the desert without having to eat and drink regularly.

The last thing we saw were these giant tortoises, these guys were huge, E & J could easily have sat on their backs and had a ride!

When we got home the excitement didn't end. Mum had made E some birthday buns. E & J can't eat dairy produce as they get poorly when they have lactose, so mum made these buns and the icing from special ingredients. She said they didn't rise as well as regular cakes, but I still think they look pretty good.

E was certainly impressed with them, look at that smile. Ansd everyone agreed they tasted good. Everyone except me that is as I didn't get to try these either. Harumph!

E was allowed to open a small presents from us, she took her main present home to open on her actual birthday.

Phew, so that was my busy weekend. I hope you enjoyed learning about all the animals. I certainly did, and hopefully I can go and visit them again soon.

Licks

Oscar x