Wildcat Kittens

There has been a few rumblings amongst some of the members who visit us regularly now about our wildcats. They were calling earlier this year, Kendra our female seems to be gaining weight, we decided to shut the male out in to his own enclosure, and then we stopped cutting the grass for a few weeks... On top of all this, it is a similar time of year to when she had kittens last year!

Well, the wait is over... yes, Kendra has had another litter of kittens this year, and even more exciting is that they have just started to make appearances over the last weekend. Still very shy around people, but we did manage to get a quick snap of one of them (above) before she ran back to her den.

Kendra is being a great mum, and is very experienced. These kittens look a little older than her last few litters when she started bringing them out, but either way they all look good and healthy.

Some of our visitors over the weekend managed to see them, and some even managed to take some lovely photographs. Hopefully we will see some of these shared online.

In the mean time, here are last years three kittens just outside their den at around the same age as our ones this year currently are.

Don't forget we are open everyday this week, and if you do decide to pay us a visit... keep your eyes open around the Wildcat enclosure for a chance to get a glimpse of these beautiful animals.

Badger Cubs

What a hectic few weeks... This year it seems that a lot of things has happened at once, and we are only just about catching up with ourselves. This means a lot of news to share with you all, and hopefully I will be able to bowl a bountiful of blog posts your way over the coming weeks... that is if we get our electricity back! But that's a tale for another time. 

So where shall I start. A lot happens behind the scenes here at the Centre, and I think it is sometimes nice to share some of these stories as well. A couple of weeks a go we had a couple of badger cubs brought in to us. They were on death's door, had obviously been out alone and abandoned for a night or two, completely dehydrated, stone cold and covered in more fleas and ticks than probably all us keepers put together had seen before. 

Most of you will be aware that we do not advertise as a rescue centre, and usually pass animals that come to us on to dedicated rescue centres, but these two cubs needed immediate attention and a lot of luck! So we kept them here to look after.

After a long night, they were finally showing some good signs, and another day saw them begin to feed well from the bottle. They are now going from strength to strength, and are beginning to begin the weaning process.

They currently live off display where we can keep them quiet and keep a close eye on them, but they do venture out in to the Dell every so often to wander around, explore... and of course DIG! so if you see any muddy divots in there at the weekend, you now know why!

More new arrivals to announce soon, and of course half term next week too... could be a good week to visit!

Photo of the Month: April 2017

"Ted and Basil" by Dave Burden

A lot has happened over the past month... Drogo being a star for the pine marten talk, long-eared owl chicks, Drogo loving his role for the pine marten talk, red squirrel kittens, a new emerging favourite for the pine marten talk, heron chicks, dancing adders, oh... and did I mention Drogo, he is really relishing his new role as being one of our main pine martens for the afternoon talks!

Lots of photographs showing all these things have been sent and and shared over the internet, but I chose the photo above by Dave Burden to be April's photo of the month. What a great moment to capture!

And below are some other favourites from the last few weeks...

"Heron Chicks" by Bobs Photography

"Dancing Adders" by Moi Hicks

"Harvest Mouse" by Lisa Clark

"Hedgehog" by Andre Neves