A very eventful day!

Hi all,

So today was my first day working at Durrell! I've started on the Bats and Marmosets section which absolutely fantastic! Today I got introduced to everything - sort of an orientation - so I got to see the Bats ( they have Livingston and Rodrigues bats), Andean bears, Pied and Emperor Tamarins, Golden and Black Lion Tamarins, Coatis, Otters and Howler Monkeys. Everyone has been really lovely and helped me start to settle in and it made things really easy :)
It was my first time into the zoo itself as well and I have to say it's easily the most beautiful zoo I've ever been in. All of the flowers are in bloom and the whole place is lucious with greenery and flower beds. The enclosures for all of the animals are of amazing quality and there's even a woodland in the middle of the zoo for the tamarins and marmosets so they can be free ranging !



A stream and flower bed running through the centre of the zoo

The Mammal Department


Also, just as a side-note, I think everyone should be super-duper proud of me as I had to put my hands into a cage filled with locusts and pick up 60 of them to feed to the tamarins! Many of you will know that I really, really, immensely dislike crickets, grasshoppers and locusts etc. so this was a true test of will for me !! But I did it in the end and I'm sure it can only get easier as I get used to them :)

During my lunch break I had a wander ( read: I literally ran around the zoo screaming) and saw as much as I could but I'm going in tomorrow as an offical visitor on my day off and so I'll have some better photos for you then. But for now here are some pictures I took of what I deemed to be the most important things to see, i.e. the Gorillas, the Orangs and the meercats :) I also saw some flamingoes on the way which were pretty dang cool as well :)



Pink Flamingoes





An Orangutan and a gibbon ( to the left)



Then after work finished we had a Jubilee celebration which doubled as a leaving party for some of the other students. There were cakes and Pimms all round and it was a really great way to meet people :)



An essential Jubilee accessory



To say goodbye to the students who have to leave we all took photos with Gerald Durrell and then with Jambo the Gorilla :)

And now I shall leave you with a piece of unbelievably amazingly fantastic news. The one and only Sir David Attenborough is coming to Durrell on July 5th and he's coming to speak to the Marms department !!! I. might. get. to. meet. and. maybe. even. talk. to. him. !!!!!!!!!!!! eek.

xx