Greetings Visited the Blue Planet aquarium last weekend. We are members there. I was delighted to see diving ducks above the native fish. Spend a pound on throwing some food in and you have an excellent close up view of them diving. Them being 6 male Tufted ducks (Aythya fuligula). They looked in excellent condition and were in no way nervous of the public. Regards, Paul M.
Sounds a brilliant exhibit. I heard that when the New Forest Wildlife Park was Nature Quest they had a similar exhibit of tufted ducks alongside native fish in what is now an american otter enclosure, would be brilliant to see that brought back.
I visited last Sunday . I very much enjoyed seeing the tufted ducks diving to the bottom of their tank and searching for food amongst the rocks . I wonder if they jumped out many times - the series of tanks are open without a great height of glass above the water level - before realising this was pointless . Outdoors the largest otter enclosure has had a higher fence put round it and is now occupied by 2 lively otters which I think were North American river . Still short-clawed in the smaller enclosure . No labels found on either enclosure . The sharks in the main tank are impressive - 7 sand tiger ( the oldest female apparently aged 38 ) zebra , lemon and nurse sharks and guitarfish . Nice to see a group of four-eyed fish in the Mangrove exhibit and a decent-sized couple of Cuvier's dwarf caiman . I'm no fish expert and did not spot any rarities , the labelling for many mixed tanks only covers a few of the many species . They were working on a 'coral cave' exhibit next to the circular coral tank with overhead platform . An interesting mixed collection with a good selection of amphibians , reptiles and terrestrial invertebrates as well as the aquatic exhibits .
