I haven't forgotten I swear !

Hi All,

Sorry for the radio silence ! I've started work officially now so it's been a wee bit hectic. I'll post a bit more on Sunday when I have my day off so this will just be a short post. Also, if people could leave me suggestions in the comments or on fb about what they would actually be interested in hearing about that'd be great cause I never really know if you guys wanna know more about St. Helier or the history of the island or the history of Durrell or the things I'm doing at work and the animals or just like "today I went to the shops and did some washing..."

So I guess today I can tell you a little bit about what I've learnt since I got here and a little bit about what I do each day at work :)

Things I've learnt...

1. Skipping down lanes running your hands through the hedgerows seems like a romantic thing to do but check whether the hedgerows have nettles in them FIRST. There is nothing romantic about having arms
which are red and splotchy and feel like they've just been electrocuted.

2. Jersey has Red Squirrels ! and I saw one ! Red squirrels are quite rare in Britain because of the introduction of the Grey squirrel but in Cumbria and in the Channel Islands they're relatively well protected. They're awesome :) I didn't get a picture but hopefully I will soon and I'll post it :)

3. There are fairs every weekend here and they're really cool - I got a flower headdress and braided my hair and I felt really British - it was a jubilee fair as well :) Also, the Queen is not really the queen in Jersey she's the Duke of Normandy so true jersey people still refer to her as the duke and not the queen :)

4. I love working at the zoo. reasons to follow...

5. There seriously are cows everywhere!

6. It's really windy and every morning when I walk to work I end up looking like one of the better quality mime acts...

So for those of you interested in my work here's a basic rundown of what I do. I am currently an intern in the Bats and Marmosets section of the zoo which means I work with Livingstone's and Rodrigues fruit bats, Silvery marmosets, Golden Lion Tamarins, Black Lion Tamarins, a Golden-Headed Tamarin, Pied tamarins, Emperor Tamarins, Coatis, Andean bears and Howler monkeys.

My basic routine most days is that I get into work at about 8am, make up the food for the tamarins, lions and marmosets and then go out and do the morning clean in one of the sections of the zoo. This could be in the off-show enclosures for the marms/tamarins or the ranges which are the on-show cages and dens for them - this morning I did off-show. This means I go up to the off-show area and give all the inside night-quarters a quick clean and change their water and feed them. I know this probably sounds boring BUT I get to go in with them and they are so lovely. Pieds are really curious and daring and sweet and look like gremlins/yoda - and there's one family of Pieds in off-show that will dare each other to run up and touch you and will investigate everything you're doing and jump on you and poke you but then as soon as you move or look at them they lose nerve and run away and then slowly, they come back and you just feel this tiny, soft little hand reaching out to grab your shirt - they're really sweet - there's also a really friendly Pied called Dobby who'll run along all of the perches you've just cleaned and scent mark them or drop bits of food where you've just cleaned and then look all innocent - but you can't get angry with him cause he's so adorable :) Then there's a BLT called Lenny who won't look you in the eye so every time you look at him he looks away and around the den so he looks really suspicious and it's very sweet :) 

Pied Tamarin, Sanguinus bicolor bicolor

Black Lion Tamarin, Leontopithecus chrysopygus

Then when I finish that I go back to the mammal department and have tea and biscuits :)

 After tea break I go and clean and feed the bats in the bat tunnel. Again, basically you go in and clean out all their food dishes and the astroturf around the enclosure in the tunnel, the hospital (which is just a separate wing of the tunnel where injured bats can recuperate) and in their inside shed area. Then you feed them and replace their water. I also enjoy doing this, though it's really hard work cause you're basically sweeping and crouching down and picking stuff up the floor for about 2 hours in a hot/humid environment but I don't mind and again you get to go in with the bats, all of whom are very friendly, and also since that area is on-show I get to talk to the public and answer questions and stuff like that which is good :) 

Then it's lunch time. 

After lunch I do a variety of jobs which might be going out into the zoo's gardens and collecting forage or it might be doing odd jobs and gardening around the place or helping someone out with their section. Then I go back to the department kitchen and prepare the food for the evening routine. 

Evening routine I either do in First Impressions ( Coatis, Bears and Howlers) or in Off-show or Ranges. It basically just involves picking up the debris the animals have left during the day, taking out their food and then feeding them their evening meal and possible helping to give them their meds if they're on them. A couple of the Pieds have a wasting condition which is very common in tamarins. They don't know what causes it, but they think it's a variety of stresses and they lose their fur in places and become very thin so these animals get special care in their feeds :) 

Then we lock up and say good night and go home or go out :)

All of the animals I get to work with are an absolute dream and I am learning tonnes. I've also been given lots of other opportunities to learn here, for example, Durrell runs a really important primate course each year and keepers from zoos all over the world come to listen to lectures etc. on better ways to keep and protect primate species and I've been invited to go along to the lectures! Also there's so many people here that I can talk to that know so much about caring for these animals and their conservation so they themselves are a really good resource and they're always happy to talk to me which is great :) 

So this has turned out to actually be a reasonably long post after all ! But yeah if you guys let me know what you'd like me to talk about that'd be great cause otherwise I feel a bit weird talking about myself like this...and I know that will shock many of you ! haha

Oh- also this is just a heads-up that on Durrell Day, 15th July, we're going to try and break the Guinness World Record for the number of cans collected in one day to raise money for Cans for Corridors. This is an initiative that Durrell helped set up in Brasil which raises money to create native forest corridors to connect up land fragments and increase the habitat and interbreeding for the Black Lion Tamarin. They only live in one tiny area in Sao Paulo state and their habitat is severly fragmented by farmland so money goes to getting landholders to plant native species to form connections between fragments and they can set up agroforestry co-ops to sell coffee and fruits etc. to help get them out of poverty. Basically the idea is that people on the island recycle their cans and every can gets 30p for the aluminium so if they give the cans to us or they take them down to the store in town they can put the money onto the Durrell account for all of the cans they bring in :) We're almost up to 1,000,000 cans and to break the record we need to collect 250,000 cans in 8 hours ! But we've got local businesses involved and so we are in with a chance ! So I realise that you guys can't take part in the event since you're over there BUT if you are interested in helping then you can always google the program ( my links aren't working at the moment but I'll put one in once I've got it to work) or I've even thought of setting up a similar thing when I get back to Australia so keep it in mind and see if there's anything you can do in Perth to help them out because Black Lions are absolutely beautiful and they're very much at risk of dying out if we don't help them - thanks guys !!!

xx