On Saturday 30th July I made my first visit to Wingham Wildlife Park. I travelled to Kent on a charter train to Canterbury, which I had booked because the return journey was to have been by Dover and Folkestone, a part of the railway system I have not travelled on. This part of the agenda was cancelled because Network Rail were working on the line. After a points failure in south London, arrival in Canterbury was about 50 minutes late, leaving me with about two hours to spend in the park. All the literature I have seen for the park says it is five miles from Canterbury, it seemd more like 55 to me. It seemed to take forever to get there. I only had one hour and twenty minutes to look around the collection so I was pressed for time. I had a list of animals I wanted to see, so I decided to search them out and ignore the other exhibits. My first port of call was the small reptile house to see Gray's Monitor. There was also a good specimen of a Rough-necked Monitor, a species I last saw in the 1970s. While the Gray's Monitor was quite active, the Rough-necked climbed into a corner and decided to stay there. It chose the only part of the enclosure where viewing was difficult because of the dirty glass. Other reptiles were Argentien Black and White Tegu, White-lipped Pit Vipers, Morelet's Crocodiles and a pair of 'Cuban' Crocodiles. Two species that I failed to see which would have been firsts were Brown Anole and Mourning Gecko. There is also a nice Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. Across from the reptiles is the Tropical House. I did not spend much time in here and can only remember seeing Dusky Lories and a Blue-streaked Lory. The house was light and not too warm on a hot summer's day. There is also a walk through butterfly area, with the usual selection of postman, great orangetip etc. Exiting the Tropical House I came to the small bat enclosure. The Little Red Fruit Bats (not labelled) and Rousette Fruit Bats are kept here. I coudn't get a decent view because a keeper was working in the enclosure, and the bats were huddled together in a corner. Subsequent research proved that I had indeed seen the Little Red Fruit Bats, the second of the species on my wanted list. Nearby is a walk through with white wallabies, donkeys, sika deer and a male black fallow deer which is very tame. There is also a nice enclosure for Barbary Macaques opposite. I hurried past the large but bare tiger enclosure (two cubs visible, no sign of the adults), around the lake and to the lemur house. I was looking for the Western Bamboo Lemurs but they were not labelled so I went straight past. I went through the large childrens' play area to see the Gunnison's Prairie Marmots, they looked like Black-tailed to me. The marmots are in a walk through enclosure. Being in a hurry I completely missed the parrot house. The hybrid Agile x Muller's gibbons were interesting. I had a quick look around the aviaries and monkey enclosures I had not seen, before making a second circuit of the park, looking for the bamboo lemurs. I asked a member of staff where they were but he didn't know. It turned out that they were in the lemur house, labelled as Red-bellied Lemurs. For me, and I am not much of a primate enthusiast, they were the highlight of the day. The only drawback was the north facing window which was in line with the sun. Because of the glare and reflections, photography proved to be somewhere in the range of extremely difficult to impossible. Wingham was smaller than I had imagined and I found it a strange mix of rarities intertwined with common ABC species. I hope to return one day and spend more time in the park.
Sounds like an epic journey there! Wingham only have the cubs - they were brought in from Belgium to be hand-reared. There's a thread on here somewhere about it. I'm pretty sure these are Black-taileds, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong. The only other marmots labelled as Gunnison's I've seen were at the short-lived collection at Stepaside; I really must dig out the photos to do a comparison. Rodents were one of Stepaside's specialities so I'm far more inclined to trust them. Interesting how perceptions differ - when I first went I was surprised how big it was (and this was pre-tigers). For a zoo nerd, proximity to the weirdness epicentres of Howletts and Sandwich perhaps works against Wingham - though it's doing a good job of siphoning off some RSCC rarities of its own.
They were labelled when I was there, but only outside the bat 'shed', not within the darkened viewing area.
They may have been labelled outside the bat shed when I visited, I could easily have missed the label. I think they are the only ones in Europe.
Originally Posted by bongorob "I went through the large childrens' play area to see the Gunnison's Prairie Marmots, they looked like Black-tailed to me." Gunnison's have a white-tipped tail, so if the Wingham animals have black-tipped tails (haven't seen 'em personally) they're not Gunnison's.
The Park said it has the only group of Little Red Flying Foxes outside of Australia and New Zealand. BBC News - Little Red Flying Fox bred at Wingham Wildlife Park
Wingham Wildlife Park Re the 'tame' Black Fallow buck; I would be concerned about any 'tame' male deer in a walk-through.
It is a walk through with the animals behind a fence. So not really a 'walk through' I'm just confusing people. It is the deer and wallabies fenced off, then a path, and a primate enclosure on the other side. There are gates at either end, which is why I said walkthrough.
Has anyone got a map of the park, I'd be interested to see the layout of this fascinating little collection