Wednesday 22nd

It was a very short working week at the zoo this last week, as I had taken both the Monday and Tuesday as holiday... so that I could work in my role as a self employed wildlife artist, rather than an employed wildlife illustrator. I was doing a demo evening in Gloucestershire on Monday to an art group, so that would be a late night back home (nearly midnight by the time I had unloaded the car etc); I needed Tuesday to unpack and put away from that and prepare for the two workshops I was to do on Thursday and Friday. So it was just Wednesday that I was at the zoo.

The souslik's were due to be put in their enclosure, after finishing quarantine off-show, this week, probably Monday, but ID signs were still on my desk when I got in on Wednesday. After giving the mammal section a call, I learnt that they were only put in this morning and would most likely stay pretty much hidden for the day until they had settled in. So first job was to pop out and put the signs up.. two copies of the ID sign and one sign explaining why we have wire strung over the top of the enclosure. There were no sign of any sousliks... I was keen to see them as their keepers had said that they were very small and cute, much smaller than the black-tailed prairie dogs we had there before. The European souslik is Europe's version of the prairie dog and is endangered in the wild.

I started painting the common chameleon illustration; the background I did last week I was still happy with so I painted in a few twigs before starting the chameleon itself. I didn't get very far with the painting today as I seemed to have lots of little jobs come up that took me away from my brushes.

One of those jobs was to laminate 27 A5 signs for the Edible Flower Garden that has been done in conjunction with a local school. The Garden Department allocate a flower bed to the school for one of their projects; to design a layout for plants that can be eaten or used as herbs etc. The 27 signs were drawn by the children and were the names of the plants used, such as cornflower, ox-eye daisy, borage and lavender. The signs were already cut to size I had only to put two side by side in an A4 laminate pouch and then cut in half at after lamination.

Another of the little jobs was to removed damaged interp from a walkway near the AmphiPod. On the posts of the covered walkway there are some flap signs...on the topside of the lid is a question or statement and by lifting the wooden flap you then see the answer or more information. Two of the flaps had been broken off so needed to be removed... I removed a third that had the topside question missing so it was pointless just having the answer up.

This last job was done at the end of the day and as I walked back to the studio I went via the souslik enclosure to see if they were out now that the zoo was quieter. As I approached I saw several dive down into the tunnels, so I found a spot behind a small shrub that was near to one of the holes and luckily the wind direction carried my scent away from the enclosure. I waited for about 5 minutes before one poked its head bravely out of the hole. A few more minutes of patient wait, not moving or making a sound  and one came out warily.. I managed to get three photos before it disappeared when someone else approached the paddock.

Rather less shy was this pudu, who came across to see what I was up to. The late afternoon sun turned the red tones of its coat up a notch bringing out those longer hairs on its head. 

I realise that I did not post a picture of the altered panther chameleon from the week before.. so here is a before and after image of the colour adjustments I had to make.