Otter Cub's 1st Outing!

Well, I promised you news as soon as we saw our otter cubs out... so here you are. This afternoon one of them was out on one of the islands!

What?.. you can't see him int he photo above?.. Well here you go...

OK, it was far away and through a lot of leaves... but he was there. I was down by the otters in the afternoon, and heard a racket coming from the main pond. A real high pitched squeal repeated. I knew it was one of the cubs, but kept quiet thinking he would just settle or mum would go get him. After 20 minutes though I thought it best I check, so went in to have a look. He was on one of the islands, and obviously didn't know what to do.

With me there though it wasn't long before Emmy came over and swore at me. I stepped out, and she went to the cub and spent a few minutes with him on the island. A few lucky people were around to see him, and helpfully pointed him out to me when back on the pathway.

After a while Emmy just pushed him in to the water, and then grabbed him by the scruff and took him back to the holt.

A little earlier than I expected to see one out, but then the mothers do move them around before they venture out on there own. This was a lucky sighting, so who nows when we will see them again. I still think a couple more weeks until regular sightings occur... but who knows. He may have got his taste for the wide open world now!

Polecat Release

Earlier this week our polecat kits were collected as part of national release programme. Other centres who breed polecats as part of this group met with us here at the Centre, and one of the group co-ordinators (Lily and Steve from Ferret Rescue Surrey) came to collect them all and prepare them for their release.

You may remember that Whitstable and Oriel had 5 kits this year. They turned out to be one female and 4 males, including one very VERY feisty one! At the end of the summer we took them off display to give mum a break, and allow Whitstable to return to his home.

While off display it allowed us to reduce the contact of people to an absolute minimum, allowing them to revert to being as wild as possible in a captive situation. By the time we had to catch them up for collection they were very weary of people and no longer coming out to see what was going on around them.

The last couple of months their food has been less prepared than our adult polecats food. What I mean by this, is rather than skin, gut and section a rabbit for example... we would feed them a dead rabbit whole so that they could learn what wild food is, and how to eat it.

Of course, a lot of the skills they will need to survive are based on instinct, and on what they have practiced through play. We will miss these little ones, but through releases such as these we have helped bring polecats back from the brink of extinction and improve their coverage over the UK.

Fingers crossed for another successful litter from Oriel next year!

Half Term Opening

Just a reminder that we are open every day of the week next week for half term. Monday the 26th - Friday the 30th of October. Of course, we are still open for the weekends too throughout the year.

The weather is getting colder, but the autumn is a great time to come and see out animals. Our red deer are coming to the end of their rutting season, but Albus is still putting on a good show. The past few days has seen our fallow buck begin to bark too... so if you do visit next week, make sure to spend some time with our deer. There will be some good behaviour on display down there from our two dominant males!

Next week is also the last week before we change to our winter schedule of times and talks, and so the last opportunity to see our hedgehog talk, badger talk and pine marten talk until the following year.

After next week our hedgehogs will go in to hibernation, and although badgers do not hibernate they do cut their activity down a lot... You will still be able to see them in their inside sett however.

Wildcat Testing

In a previous post I mentioned that we had our wildcat DNA results in, but one had to be re-tested due to a mix up. Well... a couple of weeks a go all of our cats were due their annual vaccination booster, so this provided the best opportunity to to give them all a full health check and carry out a few record taking tasks.

How do you catch a wildcat? With great difficulty!...

Actually, it's not too bad when you know what you are doing. Keeper Izzy has helped me on many occasions in the past, and with her help we soon had them netted. Our zoo vet, Alan Jones, was on stand by and so within seconds of them being netted we had them restrained and sedated.

After a quick check, record photographs where taken of their pelage (coat markings), as well as key measurements of their anatomy... tail length, hind foot etc. These where all sent off to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland where they are building a database of these statistics, and DNA, of all captive wildcats to see the correlation between results and have a full understanding of the captive population.

Vaccination boosters where given to all, and the reaming cat had a blood sample taken to be sent of for testing. Once all done, the cats where given the reversal, and soon came round.

I mentioned previously that our cats are deemed pure enough for breeding purposes, and so we hope to be able to breed them again next year. The kittens are always very popular, and have such great characters. Not only will this be lovely to share with you all again, but it will be great to be able to directly help with the conservation efforts currently going on with Scottish wildcats.

Otter Cubs

Photo taken by Alan K Jones

It seems the word is out, rumours are spreading, and so I guess it is time to officially announce that we do have a couple of new young otter cubs here at the Centre!

Emmy, our female in the main pond, has given birth to two healthy young cubs. They are just over 4 weeks old, and last week had their health check to make sure they were all ok and sex them. At the same time our vet, Alan Jones, microchipped them.

So what do we have?.. One of each, a male and a female, and the first female that Emmy has given birth to!

Photo taken by Alan K Jones

This is exciting news of course, but please don't all come rushing to the Centre to see them. Emmy is being a good mum, and keeping them well hidden within her holt. I imagine they won't be venturing out for at least a few more weeks, usually around two months is when we start to see them exploring. Of course I will let you know when we do start seeing them out and about, and I would guess that would be sometime towards the end of November.

Red Deer Rut

You may have heard a little bit of lack lustre roaring at the weekend from our Master Stag, Albus Dumbledeer... well yesterday he was in full swing and on top form. I went out to keep an eye on them for a little while in the afternoon, and he put on a good display. Lots of roaring!..

More roaring!..

Chasing away the other stags...

Even more roaring!..

And even a little bit of mating.

This will continue for another week or so, and although I saw no clashing of antlers yesterday... I did hear some rutting the other morning, but it was too misty to see anything. Olivander may very well give it another go later in the season when Albus is beginning to fatigue.

If you want to try and see some posturing, chasing and roaring this weekend coming could be a good time to visit.

September's Photo of the Month

"Harvest Mouse Peeking Out" by Andrew Fletcher

I hadn't forgotten, don't worry, here is my photo of the month for September!

Last month saw a variety of images shared around the internet, no one particular animal seemed to stand out as a favourite, but we had the usual high standard of pictures to look through. Most of our visitors photographs seem to be shared on our Flickr group, but we saw a lot crop up on our twitter feed these past few weeks which was great to see!

September is the first month after the summer opening, meaning we saw a number of images shared not only taken from when we are open to the public but also from some of our dedicated photographic days. It is from one of these days that this lovely photo of a harvest mouse was taken by Andrew Fletcher.

I love animals, and when it comes to our own British mammals I am truly passionate! One of the things that amazes me the most is the adaptations they have, and this beautiful photo does a great job in showing our smallest mammal, the harvest mouse, in its element. The prehensile tail anchoring him in place, the opposable thumbs allowing him to grip on the stem and ear of corn, and the corn itself showing how small this mouse really is. To capture this is fantastic, add to that the great composition and detail in the mouses face makes this my photo of the month.

Well done Andrew. As with the other chosen photos of the months, Andrews picture will be on display in our coffee shop gallery over the course of next year, and he will be in with a chance to win a photographic day here at the Centre if chosen as the winner by our professional photographer later this year.

To see more of Andrew Fletcher's photographs, follow the link in his name to his flickr page.

National Badger Day

Photo by Gary K Mann

Today is National Badger Day! And you know how I remember?.. As it is the same day as my Nan's birthday. So happy birthday Nyna, I'll give you a call later :-)

So badgers... what is there to talk about badgers at the moment? Hmm, not much... certainly nothing controversial and emotive any way so I will just leave you with a few badger facts below.


   - Badgers are a member of the weasel family, or "Mustelid" family. Closely related to weasels, stoats, mink, polecats, pine martens and otters, badgers are the largest mustelid in Britain

   - A male badger is called a boar, a female a sow and the young are called cubs

   - Badgers can mate at anytime of year, but have a delayed implantation meaning that there cubs are always born during the start of the new year and usually around February time

   - A group of badgers is called a "clan"

   - Living quite solitary in Europe, badgers are one of Britain's most social mammals

   - There are 8 species of badger in the world, only the European badger lives in Britain

   - Badgers have very strong, powerful, non-retractable claws

   - Badgers are the fastest digging mammal in the world for their size

   - It is thought that the word "badger" comes from the French, "Becheur" meaning "digger"

   - The Welsh for badger is "Moch daear", meaning "Earth pig"

   - A badger's home is called a "Sett"

   - Badgers are very clean animals, always clearing out their setts, and always defecating in special "latrines" dotted around their homes

   - Most of a badgers diet is made up of earth worms, of which they can consume around 200 of in a good night

   - Badgers are one of very few animals that can kill and eat a healthy hedgehog


Why not come and see our badgers this weekend. It will not be long now till they start slowing down for the winter, and although they don't hibernate, they will be a lot less active and less likely to be seen outside their sett during these colder months. Of course, you will still be able to see our badgers in their sett though through the winter.

Nature Reserve Update

Whilst updating you on the animals, I have had a few people ask me about our nature reserve... A lot of you have noticed far less trucks coming and going this year, and are keen to find out how it's doing? Well, it's doing fine!

Imagine the above photograph covered in wildflowers!

OK, it's not there yet, but the work is complete. The landscaping is done and the newer section of the reserve is 6 acres of, what we hope we can encourage, to be wildflower meadow. Currently the reserve is off bounds to the general public, but we hope in a few years tim dot be able to open it up for you to wander around during our open hours.

Our water vole population is booming down there, and many sightings of voles and signs have been seen this year by students studying them. Recently we have prepared their release pens for next season. We hope to really boost there numbers next year to not only make them even more visible, but to also encourage them to venture in to the new section of the reserve now it is compete. 

Our harvest mice, after a slow start, have had an exceptional year of breeding too. We have done several releases over the summer, and this week released possibly our last group for the year. We have ventured further away from the board walk this year, in the hope of establishing a new area of mice on the reserve. Given time the two areas will join up with suitable habitat encouraging them to spread even further.

We still have a few places we wish to release mice around the reserve, and then can begin to look further afield for future projects.

A little know secret is that our reserve is actually a relocation site for reptiles. In the past we have had slow worms, grass snakes and common lizards relocated here. The grass snakes are often seen about, more so than our actually display one in fact, but the slow worms and lizards are far more elusive.

We do have reptile sheets dotted around the reserve though, left to warm up in the sun and provide cover/shelter for our local reptiles. Next year I will make a point of sharing our finds with you occasionally. This is where you get the best chance to see our other reptiles. We have also re vamped our hiberneculums in preparation for them entering hibernation this year.

Our three highland steers have spent most of the summer out by our spinney, but will soon relocate to the reserve now that we are able to shut the gates again! This means they will provide you with lovely photo opportunities again (fingers crossed for snow!), as well as settle to the reserve to start their job of managing and grazing.

You remember our old gate we used for photography?... What am I saying, of course you do... it was a stunning gate. Unfortunately time has taken its toll though, and it has been through a bit of bad times. 

We have managed to salvage it though, and from one gate have made two props we can use for our owl photographic days. Talking of our owl photographic days, we have taken on board what some of you have mentioned, and we now have benches for you to rest and sit on at the locations around the reserve were we set up the shoots. 

And of course, the herons are still here, as bold as ever. I often get asked the best place to photograph these from? Well it depends on what you are after of course, but I would suggest forget the boardwalk and head to the second car park. The herons are used to people being there, and you are fairly close allowing good chances to take a nice pic!