Don't forget Rudolph!

Instead of (or as well as) leaving a carrot for Rudolph, sprinkle some (uncooked) porridge oats in the garden. Any he leaves will be enjoyed by the birds! 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Treat your robin!

Treat your local robin with a dish of crumble pastry maggots.

·         Put 85g flour into a bowl

·         Mix in 30g lard with the tips of your fingers

·         Rub the dry mixture into little maggot-shaped pieces

·         Sprinkle the maggots around bushes and flowerbeds

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

 

Make a sock garden!

Make a sock garden:

·         Pull on an old sock over one of your shoes/boots.

·         Go for a walk through an area of long grass, rough grazing land, moorland or similar.

·         When you get home plant the sock in the garden or in a large pot of compost and leave it outside.

·         Water it in dry weather.

Some seeds have hooks which attach themselves onto animals’ coats. This helps to spread them away from the parent plant. Seeds that use this method will have attached themselves to your sock. Once planted they should germinate and grow.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Be warm, yet cool!

 

Put an extra jumper on and turn your thermostat down by 1^oC. Not only will you be helping to fight climate change - you'll save money, too!
Visit http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Take-action/Start-saving-money for more green energy advice.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Listen very carefully....

Put on warm clothes, go outside, close your eyes and listen for 5 minutes. What can you hear?

 How many sounds can you hear that are not made by people or machines?

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Food miles

Use an atlas or globe to locate where the items in your shopping have come from. Estimate how many food miles your shop contains. Try using a food miles calculator website such as http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm Challenge yourself to reduce the mileage next time.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a seed picture

 

Make a Christmas seed picture and hang it outside for the birds.

·         Draw a picture with a pencil on a flat piece of wood

·         Paint over the pencil lines with soft lard or vegetable fat

·         Sprinkle bird seed over the lard to complete your seed picture.

·         Shake off the excess seed.

·         Put your picture out on a fine day in the open.

·         Watch the birds eat your artwork!

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Nature's treasure

 

Go on a winter ‘treasure hunt’ safari in your garden or park or in the countryside – can you find the following natural (not manmade) items?

Look for something:

·         noisy;

·         prickly;

·          small and brown;

·         hairy;

·         hard and smooth;

·          fluffy;

·         with more than two legs;

·         with wings that isn’t a bird;

·         that lives in water.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Support your local farmers

Make a delicious meal using only local ingredients.
You can find local food producers as well as recipes using seasonal produce at http://www.bigbarn.co.uk

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Get to know your trees

Visit your local park or forest with a friend – take paper and crayons and make some bark rubbings. Look at all the different patterns. Give the images to your friend. Can they match the images to the tree species from whence they came?

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Track detective

Spread some damp sand onto a path, patio or lawn. Leave it overnight then take a look the next day to see if there are any footprints to tell you who has visited during the night!

 

 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a cake for the birds

Make a small hole in the bottom of a clean empty yoghurt pot.

Thread string through the hole and tie a knot on the inside.

Leave enough string to tie the pot to a tree or similar.

Bring some lard or other fat to room temperature (but don’t melt it) in a mixing bowl.  Cut it into small pieces.

Add grated cheese, raisins, bird seed and peanuts to the bowl and mix it into the fat with your fingertips.

Squeeze the mixture until the fat holds it together.

Fill the pot with the mixture and put in the fridge to set.

Hang the bird cake from a tree or birdtable.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make yourself a nice cup of tea (or mulled wine perhaps?). Settle in a comfy armchair with a seed catalogue. Enjoy choosing some pollinator-friendly plants to grow in your garden, balcony or windowbox next year.
You can find lots of information about pollinator-friendly plants on the RHS website at http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Sustainable-gardening/pdfs/RHS_Pollinators_PlantList 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Welcome wildlife into your garden

Sign up to the RSPB ‘Homes for Wildife’ scheme to get lots of ideas for ways in which you can make your home and garden more wildlife friendly. You do not have to be an RSPB member to do this. http://www.rspb.org.uk/hfw

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Give the birds a drink

 

Make sure there is clean water available for wild birds to drink and bathe in. This can be an even more urgent need than food, especially in freezing weather. You don’t need to spend a fortune on buying a bird bath. A simple plant saucer with a stone in the middle will do the job very well.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Home Sweet Home

 

Put up a bird box. Birds start investigating potential nest sites very early so the sooner they are in place, the better. For advice on building, siting and cleaning nest boxes visit the RSPB website http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/nestboxes/smallbirds/index.aspx

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Keep a record

 

Get yourself a notebook and start keeping a nature diary. Note the natural day to day events that you see (e.g. when you see the first swallows) and your diary will soon become an interesting record. Sharing your records with wildlife organisations can be a powerful way of building up a broader picture of what is happening in nature. As a starting point, the Natural History Museum has a list of current surveys that you could become involved with: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/uk-biodiversity-portal/get-involved/citizen-science-projects/index.html 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Do the washing up!

Clean and wash your bird feeders, bird table and bird bath. Ideally, use a 5% disinfectant solution. Good hygiene can help to prevent the wild birds that visit your garden from catching diseases.  

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Snug as a bug!

Make a bug hotel.

Collect dried sticks, grasses, leaves, bits of bamboo cane, old logs and even broken bricks.

Pile them up in an undisturbed corner of the garden.

Invertebrates of all sorts will soon make their homes in your architectural masterpiece.

You can find instructions for a very simple bug hotel on Buglife's website at http://www.buglife.org.uk/Resources/Buglife/Create%20a%20bug%20hotel%202008%20pdf%20for%20web%20and%20colour%20print.pdf 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Take a nature walk

 

Go for a Nature Walk. If you have children or grandchildren take them with you and share the fun of appreciating nature.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Watch the birds

Practice for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (see http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch for details) by watching the birds in your garden or park for an hour. Use a bird book to help you identify the species that you see.

 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Light a candle

Take a stand a stand against climate change and support the largest environmental event in history by signing up to WWF’s annual ‘Earth Hour’ event – see www.earthhour.org for more information. You could even practise and get into the Christmas mood at the same time by switching off all your lights for an hour and relaxing by candlelight.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a Christmas wreath

Make a Christmas wreath for the birds and hang it in the garden or on the balcony.

 

 

Making one couldn’t be simpler;

• Thread monkey nuts onto a length of flexible garden wire.
• Bend the wire into a circle and twist the ends together, leaving one end slightly longer - make this into a loop from which to hang the wreath.
• Using raffia or kitchen string tie a small bunch of seed heads (e.g. teasel) and/or berries to the top of the wreath.
• Hang the wreath somewhere safe from cats.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Advent calendar

Don't miss our Advent Calendar with a difference! If you are, like us, a little fed up with the materialistic onslaught on the senses that characterises the run up to Christmas here is an antidote to restore some seasonal joy. Every day from 1st December until Christmas Eve we will be suggesting something that you can do to connect with nature.

Endangered Babies and Camera Divers

This was a great week for the Isle of Wight Zoo, as we welcomed six new babies!

Our Meller's ducks are a species that are only found in Madagascar. At first glance they might look like normal Mallard ducks, and many people pass them by without even noticing them. However, they are in fact a separate species. The giveaway signs are the different shape of the beak, and that the males are also brown (in normal Mallard ducks the males are brightly coloured) .

Sadly, it took so long for scientists to confirm that they were a separate species that they had become Endangered, and it is only recently that they have been allocated a breeding programme. We are thrilled to be a part of it, and we are very excited about this latest success.

The perils of taking a photograph at the zoo, however, is that there’s always someone else looking for attention. In this case it was the black-and-white ruffed lemurs, who wanted to know what all the commotion was about. They were fairly certain that I should have been looking at them instead of the boring ducks!

Marmoset News!

One of the marmosets

At the end of March we were pleased to welcome two common marmosets to the Isle of Wight Zoo. Common marmosets are a very small New World monkey, found wild in South America.

We welcomed one male and one female, who came to us as a pair from a zoo that was closing. The female marmoset used to live in an animal testing laboratory in Scotland. When it was closed down she was rescued by a rehoming service who found her a new home in the zoo world. She has been living with the male for a few months now, and we are hopeful that they may breed.

The Marmosets arrive in their new home

They have been quarantined inside for the last month while our vet has checked out their health. However, soon it will be time for them to come outside, so our maintenance team have been working on their enclosure. They still have to put on the roof, then knock a hole through the wall in the marmosets' bedroom so they can come outside. We're hoping that the rain holds off while they work!

Our Maintenance Team build the marmosets an enclosure

In the meantime our visitors can see the marmosets through the viewing window in their bedroom, which is next to the black lemur bedroom.

St. Patrick's Day Antics!

18th March 2012

Casper, Diamond and Aysha were up to some St. Patrick's day antics on Saturday! They enjoyed receiving their meals within a pint of Guinness, a leprechaun hat and a four leaf clover respectively. Diamond and Aysha originally came from Dublin Zoo, so it was fitting for them to be celebrating the holiday!

Diamond really got into the festivities, taking the action to get the leprechaun hat stuck around his neck and stroll around wearing it proudly for quite some time!

 

   

  

 



Big Cat Roll Call - 2012 Season

The sun has been shining in vast quantities here on the Isle of Wight and so what a better time to catch a glimpse of the big cats enjoying themselves in the Sun. Here are some photos from the past two weeks representing all the cats that reside at the Isle of Wight Zoo.

We do often celebrate their birthdays so if you have a favourite cat you would like to come visit to celebrate with, the birthdays are as follows:

Zena - May 22nd (16 this year)

Diamond and Aysha - August 2nd (14 this year)

Casper - August 25th (6 this year)

Charlie Brown and Snoopy - September 14th (14 this year)

Nahla - September 28th (14 this year)

Lola - October 27th (15 this year)

Zia - December 12th (17 this year)

We dont have exact birthdates for Raijiv, Chandru, Chiquita or Tequila but they will still at different times during the year thats for sure!



Raijiv -

Chiquita -

Nahla -

Zia -

Zena -

Charlie Brown and Snoopy -

Aysha -

Tequila - 

Chandru -

Lola -

Casper -

Diamond -

Winter Construction Updates

21st February 2012

It has been a while since the last update but that doesn't mean any less work has been done or the cameras have stopped clicking, so here is an update to show what has been going on over the winter period.

With the zoo being more a seasonal business, running at full speed in the spring and summer months, we take full advantage of the quieter times in winter to get some construction done. The main project this winter has been a refurbishment of the Tiger Sanctuary area of the zoo.

In 2010, a new set of tiger bedroom accommodation was made, a significant upgrade from their previous bedrooms. The new bedrooms are positioned at one end of the tiger sanctuary and are directly connected to two of the enclosures there. However one of the other enclosures down the other end of the tiger sanctuary was still only connected to the old bedroom area. Two goals were therefore present here - 1. To connect the far enclosure to the new bedroom block and 2. To knock down the old bedroom block that was now redundant and taking up space. This will now allow for enclosure extensions and additional visitor viewing areas.

To do this a fenced off walkway has been constructed through the middle of two of the enclosures to connect the farthest enclosure. This new interconnected system also means we can freely rotate the cats around into different enclosures in a daily basis, vastly increasing the amount of space they effectively have as well as providing very interesting enrichment in the form of the smells left behind by the previous occupants - the tigers will be able to get to know each other even better! These refurbishments apply to the tigers Lola, Chandru and Rajiv.

Below are some before and after photos to show visually what's been going on....

....but it wouldn't be a true blog update without any animals! So to make this update more palatable I have sandwiched the construction photos with some shots of the wonderful Mr. Fox. that I mentioned I would get some photos of (in a blog update from about 6 months ago! - I can only poke fun at the frequency of these updates currently!)

Turns out Mr. Fox doesn't mind a good pose - just like the most of the cats at the zoo!

Tiger Sanctuary Refurbishment

The solid wall between 2 enclosures at the tiger sanctuary has now been removed so that the cats can now see each other again. Whilst this refurbishment has been going on Lola and Chandru have been living temporarily in two other enclosures where they can see each other and this has lead to a prolific amount of chuffing (chuffing is the tiger friendly welcoming greeting, a strong indicator that the cats are enjoying each others company), and we hope they will continue to enjoy seeing each other once they have been moved back into these enclosures:

There is also now a walkway for the tiger in the far enclosure to walk down to reach the new bedrooms (in this shot from ontop of the new bedrooms, the old green bedrooms at the end are still standing but these are being demolished currently to finished connecting the new bedrooms to the far enclosure):



(a view down the new walkway towards the new bedrooms)

The wall came down...

Then the old bedrooms started coming down...

With more space, there is now a small extension to the two tiger sanctuary enclosures, always good!...

A view of the new bedrooms. Now with connecting tunnel to far enclosure and additional security area for the cat to go through to give increased safety to keepers operating in the enclosures as well as benefits from a veterinary stand point.

Then more of the rest of the old bedroom block is coming down to make way for more visitor viewing space and the rest of the connecting tiger walkway...

First row of bedrooms knocked down! (Brandishing some of the tools that did the job - I spot a sledgehammer, a crowbar and one of those big pneumatic drills!)

An unnecessary shot, but I would like to use this space to express my delight at the removal of the most ridiculously short beam of wood in the zoo that I used to bang my head on every morning! Here I stand in the spot where it used to be - who's laughing now!!

Meanwhile..

Whilst all this has been going on, as I mentioned, Lola and Chandru have been moved to temporary enclosures where they are in full view of each other (previously they had that solid wall between each other that has now been taken down for when they move back) and have been getting on very well! They often like to stay next to the other and do a lot of chuffing! Here are some shots of them looking cosy....

(p.s. check out the size of Chandru next to Lola! Chandru is an approximate 145kg cat at the last weigh in compared to the approximate 110kg Lola)

One more of Mr. Fox:

We didn't get any snow here in Sandown on the Isle of Wight this past winter, though I know most of the country did. We were somewhat  looking forward to seeing some snow however, as it always make for a striking photo. Oh well, maybe Mr. Fox will get his first snow fall next year!