Tuesday 13th - met the new lemurs

This morning a group of reception school children visited the zoo. Nothing unusual there, we have many such visits, but this one was a little different for me because my brother's girlfriend was one of the adults accompanying the group. She is a teacher's assistant and I had arranged to meet them to say hello to the children and welcome them to the zoo.

I met them up by the entrance and after quickly telling the children what I did at the zoo I got them asking me questions - favourite ones among them were all related to dinosaurs, which have sadly now left the zoo. I walked with them on their journey along the enclosures of the top terrace, dropping in a few facts about the animals they saw, which was hopefully interesting to the children and adults and then said goodbye. I saw them again a few times during the day, as I went about my tasks outside.

Not long after I returned to the studio I got in touch with the mammal section. We have a new species of lemur settling in and I had the ok to go and get photo's of them. The two male red-bellied lemurs Eulemur rubriventer were not actually on show to the public, as the walk-through exhibit they are in is now closed to the public through the winter. However, it is possible to see them through the mesh fencing, so an ID sign needs to be done.

The two lemurs are in the process of being settled in and will shortly be slowly introduced to the other lemurs that share the enclosure, the mongoose and ring-tailed lemurs. So whilst all was quiet and the animals were happy being out and about I was able to go in the walk-through with one of the keepers to see them.

Now it is probably undisputable that all lemurs are very cute... and these two boys were no exception. They have a beautiful chestnut brown coat with a black face and tail. From the corners of their eyes a patch of bare white skin forms almost 'teardrop' shapes either side of the bridge of their muzzle. This gives them a very appealing and adorable 'expression'. The two lemurs we have are very friendly and although no contact is encouraged between human and animal, they both seemed very comfortable around us and had no qualms about getting close and even jumped onto the keeper a couple of times without encouragement. I was able to get a variety of photo angles of them and would be working from these as with the introductions soon to take place, I would not have access for long periods of sketching.

Photos done I returned to the studio to upload and provisionally sort through them.
In the afternoon I also put up all the ID signs (except the two that go in the Forest of Birds) around the zoo. Whilst in the nocturnal house I got chatting to a couple from Taunton who were visiting the zoo for the first time in many years; decades in fact. They were both very impressed and were thoroughly enjoying their visit.

I finished putting the new signs up and resticking some of the old ones just as it was getting dusk, the light was quickly fading. I finished the day off going through the lemur photo's more thoroughly.