Ceylon leopard 1974

Banham is easily reached from Cambridge by taking an hour long train and then cycling for half an hour through pleasant countryside. Of course one has to get to Cambridge first and have a bike but still.

Banham also is probably unique in having a charity bookshop incorporated into the entrance complex, thus combining two of my great passions

I lived for a while not far from Banham, about 25 minutes car drive. Its in the middle of nowhere really but I was pleasantly surprised to find such a good quality small/medium- sized zoo on my doorstep, and so I was a fairly regular visitor for a while. I remember the Sri Lankan Leopards, though at that time they were two sibling males living in older housing. Can't believe they actually had breeding Owl-faced Monkeys at that time too. Would that they still did.

Africa Alive/ Suffolk Wildlife Park down near Lowestoft took a lot longer to get to- about an hour and a half, but again, well worth a visit.

Generally East Anglia is still a rural backwater, a vast area still served primarily by A trunk roads and no motorways (after Cambridge). In a bit of a time warp in some ways e.g. I was surprised to find 1960's style 'transport cafes' still in existence, obviously in lieu of any Motorway service stations.

Indeed it is. It's also rather erratically translated from the German, and uses some pretty bizarre names in places!

And, horror of horrors, it would mean using (whisper it) 'Harbour Seal'...

AAAAAAAARRGGGHH!!!


Sorry, I mean:


'Common' in an animal's common name does NOT mean 'numerous' or 'frequently-encountered'.

It means 'standard', 'regular' - 'ordinary' if you like - the same meaning as 'common' has in the phrase 'common name', in fact.

I fear that Clinton Keeling would be rolling over in is grave, were he to read these words!

(but he would certainly have approved of Sri Lanka being known as Ceylon - and would have regarded with deep suspicion anyone who insisted on using the "new" name for the country....).

Yes, but the difference here is on this one he would have been right!

Yes indeed. Zootierliste is not a perfect solution, but I don't think it can be wrong to use it. But as I said previously, I claim the right to select the captions for my photos and I would certainly overrule 'harbour seal' - and I wouldn't capitalise it either

I have only driven to Banham; the problem is that my route passes Grimes Graves and I have to resist the temptation to visit the Neolithic.

Alan

Ah, I'm afraid I was taught that species names used as such should be capitalised (effectively treating them as proper nouns) - to avoid any confusion between, say, a little bustard and a Little Bustard - so that is how I write. It takes a little stylistic concentration to work out if I need 'lion' or 'Lion' (almost always the former referring generally to lions in conversation, rather the the latter - which I would only tend to use in a list of species, and ideally with a subspecies modifier anyway) but I find it adds clarity, particularly when dealing with unfamiliar species.