Saturday, June 28, 2008

Tiger Tiger!

We realised that D#4, despite being primary school age, had never been to a zoo. So on a recent school inset day we rang the bank manager, arranged a loan, and went to Colchester Zoo.

It was excellent. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, apart from D#4 who kept asking when we were going home. But he never asked when we were looking at the animals, only when we were between them, so I think he enjoyed it really.

Lots of highlights, better views of many animals than I've ever had before. An excellent display of flying owls and a vulture. It's a well run place I can thoroughly recommend for a family day out. We let D#2 loose with the camera. The photos are taken through thick glass, so there's some reflection, but you get the idea.




The falconer mentioned wild Eagle Owls in the UK. He said they hunt for 8 minutes per day, and hunt by sitting and watching and waiting for prey to come close, when they drop on it. Apparently in the 1987 storm a lot of aviaries blew down, and some Eagle Owls escaped and bred; one femal in North Yorks has raised over twenty young. So in summary, there could be lots of them out there and we wouldn't know.

1 comment:

Nellie Phant said...

would have been so much better if u invited D#1.

Great Grey Shrike

Nine years ago when I gave up working I went to see a Great Grey Shrike at Grimes Graves. It was easy to find, showed well, all round very ...