Water Shrews are Back

Our hedgerow pond enclosure in "The Hedgerow" has taken on many forms over the last few years, but it was last years Water Shrews which were the biggest hit! Unfortunately they both died of old age, but at the end of last year we sourced 2 more pairs from Derek Gow Consultancy.

With our recent tidying up of the enclosure, today saw us introduce one of the pairs to the display. We will keep the others off-display in potential breeding pens, but with the pair on display also a potential pair we have fingers crossed for possible youngsters later this year.

The Water Shrew is the largest of the British shrews, and very distinctive with its black fur on top and white fur underneath. They often have white tufts of fur around the eyes too.

They are usually found near water, such as along streams and river banks, and have a preference for water cress beds.

Water shrews are insectivores, and will hunt both in the water and on land, freshwater shrimps, caddis fly, small fish, beetles and earthworms all being regularly taken. They have to eat 50% of their body weight every 24 hours just to survive and so their reputation for having a voracious appetite it just.

The water shrew, as many others, has venomous salvia which helps to stun it's prey, and aids digestion when eating. The water shrew is one of our shrews which has red tipped teeth. This is a sign of the extra iron deposits that form in the enamel of the teeth, and help to prevent them wearing down on the hard casing of their invertebrate diet.

Usually a solitary animal, water shrews can live together, and will generally breed over the end of Spring/early Summer. Their life span is short, only 18 months, and often they die after just one breeding season, but they can have up to 3 litters within that time.

To see our water shrews you will have to be lucky, but they are active frequently during the day hunting for food. Spend some time at the enclosure and you may may treated with a rare glimpse of this  fantastic animal.

As well as the water shrews, we have decided to delay putting our sicklebacks back and instead use this larger fish tank for our tadpoles. This will give you a much better glimpse into their transformation from  tadpole to froglet than previously seen in our small tank in reception. Keep an eye on them over the next few weeks to see how they develop.

While patiently waiting to see the water shrews, not only do you have the tadpoles to look at, but also a few stickle backs in the pond and many other little water invertebrates. The ramshorns have even started laying their eggs, so many snailets to be seen very soon.

Don't forget, we are open everyday from this Saturday the 31st of March, for the Easter period.

What do you call a deer with one antler?...

...ERIC

It's that time of year again when the red deer start to cast their antlers. Today Eric, our "Master Stag," cast his first one. As you can see, they don't always drop at the same time and it can be a few days between each antler falling.

Red Deer cast their antlers every year before starting to grow a new set. Each year the antlers growth follow a similar pattern to previous years, and usually get a little bigger. The number of tines on the antlers has no correlation to the age of the deer and you can't count them to work out how old a stag is, however it is true that usually the older stags have more tines.

The new antlers will only take around 16 weeks to grow, covered by a "velvet" which helps to carry the nutrients required for growth. The deer will then shed this velvet during mid Summer to expose their new antlers, made of true bone, ready for the rut later in the Autumn.

Back in 2008 I took a series of photos of Eric growing his new antlers, one a week, and it took exactly 16 photos for the full growth. Last year Peter Trimming, a regular visitor, re created the series with a photo a week. You can see these photos on our flickr group.

You can see it was 23 weeks before his new antlers had shed the velvet, but if you look closely enough I think you will agree that they actually stopped growing around the 16/17th week.

The antlers are pretty heavy, and this one cast today weighed just shy of 3kg. Thats 6kg Eric has been carrying around with him for the last 7 months.

We often get asked what we do with all the antlers that are cast. Well, the nicer ones we keep for display purposes, the newly cast ones from our main stag/buck we keep to show to school groups and colleges/universities, and the older and smaller ones we cut up to put in with our smaller rodents as a way to help keep their teeth down and as a source of calcium

... There's always one!


So, What do you call a deer with no eyes?
          No eyed deer

What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?
          Still no eyed deer

What do you call a castrated deer with no eyes and no legs?
          Still no..... well, I guess we should leave it there for the jokes.


Come and see Eric next week and give him some sympathy, it's this time of year that the younger stags feel more important while he just looks like a big hind!

Nocturnal House Opening

Today was our official opening of our new exhibit for 2012, the "Nocturnal House." This new exhibit houses 5 new enclosures to display our most nocturnal of animals by swapping their day and night around with a special lighting system. This computer controlled system imitates the year by having shorter days in the Winter and longer days in the Summer, it also dims the light in the morning and brightens in the evening to mimic the dusk and dawn period.

Chris Packham was here to cut the ribbon, and do all the talking to the press. Chris is a good friend of the Centre, and genuinely seemed excited by our new venture.

The main enclosure is for our bats. Above is a photo of a Noctule bat which was on hand at the opening, but our enclosure will display just 3 species... The common pipistrelle, the serotine bat and the brown long eared bat. It is the first enclosure of this kind to display British bats to the public in this way.

We have established close links with several bat groups to help with the design of the enclosure, and the skills involved with looking after these specialised animals. The Bat Conservation Trust, Surrey Bat Group and in particular the Sussex Bat Group and Amanda Miller.

Amanda has been a huge source of information in all aspects of bat care, and has even donated some of her bats to our care. She will remain a close contact with all bat work we do.

As well as the bats we have a large enclosure for a pair of hedgehogs, 2 smaller enclosures for hazel dormice and a pen for our edible dormice who were the stars of the show today!

You can see sneak peek of the new house above, but do come and have a look for yourselves. It may well take a little while for the animals to settle down to their reversed routine, but once they have I am sure it will be a huge success.