October's Photo of the Month

"T+T = Togetherness" by Helen Haden

October looks like it was a good month for photographers! Lots of pictures have been shared in various places on the web, including our first glimpse of one of our new otter cubs. I could have quite easily chosen one of many number of cracking photos that I have seen, but I have gone with this photo above sent in via email taken by Helen Haden of keeper Tom, and Tyrion the little owl.

I think this photo speaks for itself... a beautiful capture of the connection between our keepers and the animals, and the close bond they form with each other. Little Tom giving Tyrion some words of encouragement before a flying display, lost in the moment, and the expression on the owls face is priceless. A great photo which Helen should be proud of.

Helen's photo will be on display in our coffee shop gallery throughout next year, and be in with a chance to win a photographic day here at the Centre if chosen out of the final 12 images by a professional photographer.

To see more of Helen Haden's photographs, follow the link in here name to visit her flickr page.

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!