A marabou stork has recently hatched, a first breeding for Hamerton. It is being hand-reared in the bird incubation and rearing unit; other birds in there currently include ducklings, ibis, a Ruppell's griffon vulture and the first grey partridge chicks produced by the recently-arrived birds for the reintroduction project. A second marabou stork egg is also under incubation currently. More information is included on the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Popped in this afternoon. The enclosure next to the Grisson now has Javan Binturong. The Hyrzax seemed to have moved on, with maybe Emperor Rock Lizard in their place. Nothing in the tank next to it yet.
It appears that there are Canadian Lynx kittens, having seen a recent Instagram post with one being carried by its mother.
Three new species are due to arrive at Hamerton in the coming weeks, which has meant several species have been moved around. A brand new house and enclosure have been completed. The pair of Javan binturong living next to the grison are comprised of a young female born at Hamerton and an imported male. The yellow-spotted hyrax have moved from the reptile house to the enclosure nearest the zoo entrance; this will allow them access to an outdoor enclosure. A minor re-fit in the reptile house will see the savannah monitor move and the bearded dragons move off-show into the education centre to leave space for the new species. More information is included in the link below: Hamerton Zoo Park - Animal Park Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
I wonder what these new species might be... Hamerton being Hamerton, they’re unlikely to be anything commonplace or predictable.
That's Hamerton in a nutshell for you... A good old little zoo wasting NO time on building new enclosures, improving certain areas/facilities and introducing new and unusual additions to their wonderful collection!
The Facebook clue also says that neither of the two new Australian species are marsupials. One of the pictures shows a fairly low box with some shredded paper and a water bottle and the other picture shows two much larger crates.
From the size of the water bottle the first box isn't very big, so it probably holds rodents. Something like Spinifex Hopping Mice would be the most likely species.
I'm going with water rat and some ratite species, those big crates seems unnecessarily big for a dingo.
Great news - haven't seen Spinifex Hopping Mice in years. I take issue with the '30 years' since the last Dingo in the UK though - I was definitely older than 5 when I saw the last one at Kessingland - don't need to be made to feel older than I already do by these things! (EDIT: we have at least one photo on Zoochat from 1992 with a Kessingland Dingo (Dingo at Suffolk Wildlife Park, 1992 - ZooChat), so I'm not going mad! It would have been around that time I went I think, when I was closer to 10 than 5, or perhaps even a little later - I had 1994 in my head)
The original tiger enclosure is my guess. Didn't they say a while back the caracals were in a part of it and the rest would be used for something else? Anyway, dingoes.... WOW. Hamerton have done it again!!
Taken from the Hamerton news page:- 'Yogi' and 'Daisy' can be seen (from a distance) in their holding run near to the Tayras for the next few days. Next week, after they have settled in (and it is quieter following the school holidays) they will have use of the large paddock. I'll be going over this week so will see what I can see!?!
