Rain stop play

Woke this morning to hear reports of flooding around the area and to see the rain still lashing down. The drive to work was fun negotiating many deep puddles trying not to drench pedestrians in waves of wash from the wheels. Had come to work prepared though, having packed a spare pair of trousers and a towels as I was due to spend some hours with Eddie tweeking the Christmas Animal Shape Lights into order and had expected to get a wee bit drenched from the bottom of my lovely warm waterproof coat down.  Met Eddie from Maintenance just after 9am in the pre-arranged place beneath one of the trees with the monkey shapes in. However the Maintenance team were dealing with a lot of flooding issues around the zoo grounds so the lights would have to wait til next week. We arranged to meet on Tuesday to do the lights.

On the way back I stopped for a few minutes in the meerkat house, where it was lovely and warm and my already very damp trousers could start drying a bit. All the troop were inside and they must have been expecting food, as they kept coming over to me and looking up at me with pleading eyes. But it was obviously playtime as they never stayed looking at me for long before they either went off looking for someone to wrestle with or someone pounced on them. So entertaining to watch and listen to.

Back to the studio and I was able to carry on with and finish the red-bellied lemur illustration.

Before it can be put on the ID sign file, it has to be 'ok'd' by the Animal Department so I contacted Lynsey, Assistant Curator of Mammals, to arrange a time where she can look at it.  Hopefully she will be able to come over to the studio this afternoon. 

Just before lunch I went through the photo's I had sorted previously for the Greater pipefish, Syngnathus acus, to choose the ones best to work from. I had taken photo's of the animals we have here at the zoo, but they did not come out very good at all as they are in a dark tank and the fish are relatively small, thin and like to hide making them very difficult subjects to photograph. I had a job finding good photo's on the internet too, so my references for them are very limited. I have looked at several websites getting written descriptions of them too which will help with the tiny fins that don't really show up on the photo's. This looks like it won't be an easy fish to get right. I think I will pop down to the tank they are in this afternoon with a camera just on the off chance of getting a fluke better shot.

The sun came out and was giving us a bright beautiful afternoon.... so after lunch I headed to the Seal and Penguin Coast exhibit to get some more photo's (hopefully) of the pipefish, who are housed in a tank in the underwater area.

On my way through the exhibit I could see the South American fur seals having a training session. This seal was practicing presenting his flipper... this training enables the keepers and veterinary department to examine and treat the seals without putting them through the stress of knocking them out with drugs.

Moving on down into the  underwater area I reached the pipefish tank. I got a few more photo's, nothing marvellous or particularly handy to work from, it doesn't help that flash photography in that area is not allowed so I was having to bank on natural light filtering down through the water of the penguin pool which was seen through the pipefish tank. I also adjusted the camera settings to get the best out of the low light situation.

As you can see not great photo's for details. So this illustration will be a bit of a challenge, especially when the animal itself is difficult to see in any light to get colour and details.

Whilst I was in the underwater area I looked in on the fur seal's pool, as there was some lovely light effects going on in the sunshine beneath the water. Whilst I was looking I noticed just in front of me a small white oval object drifting around in the gentle current of the water, it intrigued me and on closer inspection I saw that it was a pumpkin seed with a hitch hiker clinging on for dear life.  

This poor little insect was deep underwater on a life raft that showed no signs of rising to the surface... was it doomed to a watery grave? It might last a while as it was enveloped in a sheen of air that covered its body, so who knows... maybe the seed would eventually surface and the insect could fly away.

I had a couplke of requests come in for duplicate signs from the reptile house, one of which was no problem and was soon printed out and laminated ready to take to the section but the other one, a Malayan box turtle, was not so easy. It was not on the computer... I looked at all the other box turtle ID documents, all the relevant and not so relevant files. I checked the back ups and archive files... no sign of it apart from the illustration. Very confusing. 

Anna and I had to pop over to the Aquarium late afternoon to cover the blue-spot grouper sign from public view; he had, alas, died. Such a shame as he was a stunning fish and one of my favs. On our way out of the aquarium we popped into the reptile house next door so that I could see the Malayan box turtle sign they had on show. Having a good look at it Anna noticed that the font was very slightly different (as a graphic designer she can pick up on such things easily) and we both could see that the map was hand painted... so that made the sign a really old one... and it now made sense as to why I could not find the file on the computer... it was done many years ago and was probably a file of an old application that became obselete and unable to be read on the Macs as we updated them over the years.

We had a little look around the reptiles and watched a huge amethystine python newly emerged from sloughing... but with its middle section still cocooned in its old skin. In its new skin, the scales and colours looked beautiful and vibrant with a slight sheen of iridescence. 

We spoke to one of the reptile keepers who took us round the back into the keeper area to let us see the baby West African dwarf crocodiles close up. Not only that but we held one each too. I love baby crocs.. they are really quite cute and have beautiful markings, though I was sad that they never made that unmistakable baby croc call. They had been fed yesterday and their tummy's felt quite solid and full... once in the hand they calmed down quickly and it was wonderful to be so privileged. The one I held rested one of his hind feet on my thumb and his little digits wrapped round the curve of the end of my thumb as I gently moved his leg slightly up and down. I was in heaven...Anna wasn't so sure. At first she did not want to hold one, she said her mind just kept saying.. it's a crocodile! But she succumbed to their cuteness and held one. She took a photo of one in my hand.. so when she sends it to me I shall post it here.  

What a fab way to end the day and our working week..... she had something really cool to go home and tell her young son about.... I had another great zoo memory.                                                                                                                          .