Blog Update

Hello everyone... yes, we are still here... it is just that the past month has seen a lot of work going on at the Centre behind the scenes, or at least not directly relating to the animals here. A bit of re-thinking from our office team on a few fronts, and a bit of re-structuring in our coffee shop as well... but for those of you that want to visit us, please don't forget we do still have some lovely animals here for you to see too!

So, lots to catch up on... keep an eye open for an exciting opportunity being posted here later today. Next week we will round up our Photo of the Year for 2017, before sharing our first Photo of the Month for 2018. I have some lovely photos of our two beautiful otter cubs I am itching to share with you, half term is only just over a week away and we have been involved with some exciting research work I will let you know about too... but first a quick update.

2018 is going to be a big year for the Centre, and the office staff have decided to grab the bull by the horns, or maybe that should be deer by the antlers... and really push the social media side of things. Some of you may have noticed this already, and our facebook group is now far more active and they have plans to extend this to both twitter and instagram.

Actually deer antlers fall off each year, maybe we should stick with bull by the horns...

With this push in mind, they want to post a lot of the little animal updates straight to social media. Just the little snippets like the odd photo, or quick update, nothing major. Most of you visit this blog via links on social media already, but for those of you who come directly here don't worry, you won't miss out on any of the big stories. Any real news on the animals at the Centre... new arrivals, exhibits, cubs growing up etc I will still post about here.

With these changes in mind, you may have noticed the blog looks a little different. Nothing major, just a couple of new images and a wider display to make things a bit easier on the eye, but also a few more links.

Up top there are now direct links to our social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube all run by our office team. Also a link to our flickr group where several of our visitors have and continue to share photographs they have taken here. On the right it is now a bit easier to find things in this blog. A search bar that covers every post ever made, the full archive of posts listed, a featured post and a list of a few popular posts from the past year.

I realise I said a quick update, it seems it is a long update, but let me bring you up to speed with the animals quickly before you leave. You can see further up that one of our stoats, Susie, moulted in to her ermine coat again this year. Looking as beautiful as ever. She is still ermine at the moment, and should be for a few more weeks.

The keepers have been busy using the slightly quieter time of year to get on top of some enclosure sorting, and preparing some animals to be moved. A new pine marten will be on display shortly, and our wildcat kittens from last year are getting ready to be collected to join the breeding program at other Centres across the country.

And finally, did you see our owner David Mills make the small cameo alongside Dame Judi Dench in her tree program before Christmas?... What am I saying, of course you did... we reminded you enough about it... Well, his new role as TV starlet continues this coming Sunday on Countryfile as he talks with Ellie about our foxes. Make sure to give it a watch to see David and some of our foxes on the small screen.