First off a disclaimer. Despite the thread title very little of it actually features Somerset, but I thought that was a far better title than anything else I could come up with. Today I've spent a pleasant few hours in the company of @ThomasNotTom and also managed to tick off some highly sought after species as well, a pretty successful day overall. Before I give my thoughts on the collections visited I'll give a bit of background. The two zoos on today's itinerary were Combe Martin and Exmoor, I'd visited the former before but the latter was high on my "to visit" list so it was pretty good to finally tick it off. But before we could go to any collections I had to get to Devon first, and here's where the Somerset bit comes in. I got the train to Highbridge & Burnham, arriving at the arranged time. My esteemed companion, who lives in the town, managed to turn up late due to road closures... Next post will get down to the nitty gritty of zoo reviewing!
Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park Stop number one was this interesting place, I've been here once before but it was a short and unenjoyable visit that time, no fault of the park but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. This time my visit was far more uplifting despite the weather's best attempts to ruin it, more of which later. The zoo is built around a valley (Maybe a ravine? I like zoos, not so hot on geology!) and you get a taste of the vertical scale of the place as you make your way down the car park. Forget your Dudleys, forget your Colchesters, hell maybe even forget AlpenZoo, as the paths at CM are probably ideal for your average Caprid! The brightside to this is the zoo has a fantastic setting and is heavily forested in parts whilst being quite open in others, a very interesting contrast. Species-wise there's nothing to set the heart alight here except maybe a solitary (unseen) genet and a pair of bat-eared foxes mixed with meerkats, in what as to be one of the biggest enclosures for either species in the UK. Other notable species here include African lions, two packs of wolves (timber & "Hudson Bay"), some Barbary macaques and Hamadryas baboons, sea lions, penguins, an assortment of birds, and Amur leopards. The last of these is technically off-show but their substantial cage can be seen from certain points in the park, and there are big plans afoot to get them on-show and in a huge enclosure. Preliminary work has started but it will be quite some time before the new open top extension is ready for the leopards or the public. Enclosure wise the zoo is very much a "wood and wire" collection, with the exceptions being the capybaras who have a very nice wooded exhibit with large water features, also the lion enclosure, which is partly caged over with a large but unimpressive paddock attached, and the sea lion pool. The sea lions (a 2.0 pair) have a fairly small but adequate pool with a secondary smaller pool next to the main enclosure in a small extension area. The exhibit isn't going to win any design awards (The random cannon for theming really isn't working!) but it's functional enough to work. Pretty much everything else mammalian is housed in an acceptable but fairly pedestrian manner bar the largest wolf pack who seem very short changed in a treeless and grassless barren paddock. The most underwhelming parts of the zoo come in the shape of a very lacklustre tropical house, and a pitifully small penguin pool with a garden pond as a water source. On my visit we saw six animals "free-roaming" in the tropical house, one bird, four terrapins/sliders/turtles of one (unidentified) species, and one common snapping turtle. In the lobby area there is an enclosure for green iguana and another for boa constrictor and that's your lot folks, hopefully this is a seasonal issue and not the constant situation. Other than the above the rest of the collection is contained in a small invertebrate house above a dinosaur museum. The invert's are pretty standard stuff, hissing cockroaches, stick insects, tarantulas and the like, whilst the museum is very nicely done but there isn't a lot to it. A bit like the collection as a whole really. The plethora of dinosaur models scattered around the park did nothing for me, (same as at All Things Wild), but I suppose I'm not the target audience. One nice touch I'd like to point out is that CM still has free-flying macaws, something that came as a bit of a shock to both Thomas and myself. In summary, a very nice location, mostly average exhibitry, a lot of uninspiring dinosaur models, and a very average species line-up. I enjoyed my visit despite the gale force winds and the rain but I won't be rushing back for a while. Maybe when that new leopard exhibit opens...
Sounds like it has not changed much since I was there 30 plus years ago. I was not impressed then either.
Come on Brum It's pretty clear that the tropical house is understocked at the moment due to the season, when I went in the summer it was much more vibrant and "alive". We saw two adult snappers, and one juvenile
Nice group of Raccoons in an open topped enclosure if I remember rightly. There were TWO birds in the tropical house when I last visited, a touraco and a hornbill. There us a magnificent White Pelican living with the Penguins in what I thought was quite an acceptable enclosure. What I don't understand is why this bird is on his own, when the species is fairly readily available.
I suspect the tropical house looks better in the summer, (vegetation getting more light?), but it was summer when I visited -- two birds, iguana, snake, turtles......
Certain aspects are quite impressive, the capybara enclosure being the standout. Once the new leopard enclosure is built then they'll definitely have something to crow about. Thanks, Exmoor is proving tricky to write-up but it's coming. Hopefully some of the birds are just off-show for the season, you'll have to re-visit in a couple of months and report back! There were definitely more turtles than that though, did we decide what the others were? Hornbill signed but unseen and unheard. Each to their own but I personally thought it was a bit short changed in the water department. And yeah, the pelican does look a bit lost on its own, especially when Exmoor does pelicans so well, quite a contrast. Looking back at my photos I only see two trees, might be three but one might be the same one from a different angle, so yeah fairly barren, especially when compared to the other wolf enclosure.
Maybe into the house that the park's grounds are set in? That's where they keep the macaws when they aren't free ranging. It's a moot point though, as @FBBird has confirmed that, even in summer, the bird situation is just as poor.
I can admit when I'm wrong. Found another photo and there are another three trees in there as well. But still not as lush as the other exhibit.
By seasonal, I mean in terms of visitor numbers... It looked as though they were doing some work on the pond as it's the off season currently; better to get things done when visitor numbers are lower.
Exmoor Zoo Having conquered Combe Martin with only mild hypothermia and slightly aching legs it was time to move on to a highly anticipated collection. Since getting into this zoo enthusiast malarkey two previously unknown (to me) collections stood out for their species line-up. Number one was Hamerton, which I got to last year (see East Meets West (Midlands) for more details), and Exmoor, which I visited on the 29th of February 2020 (see below for details). Now I'm at a loss as to which collection should be my next priority... Exmoor and Combe Martin are extremely close to each other and make an ideal double up if you happen to be in the area. You could even throw in Tropiquaria in the summer to make it a triple, but alas, I couldn't make it work this time. Upon arrival at Exmoor you're greeted with a very nicely done entrance/exit area, which inevitably leads onto the gift shop, and also the tropical house. Unlike CM's attempt this one contained only animals behind glass and no planting, in fact it wasn't very tropical at all. The three largest exhibits housed dwarf mongoose, Cuvier's dwarf caiman, and a large but sterile enclosure for large hairry armadillo and Arabian hyrax. Told you it wasn't very tropical... Thee are two invert' tanks and two reptile tanks set into one wall with the highlight being prehensile tailed-skinks. Other than a rhinoceros iguana in the main zoo and some poison dart frogs by the entrance that's it for herp's. Not to fear though, there are plenty of avian and mammalian delights to be found here, which makes up for the lack of herptiles in my opinion. After doing the tropical corridor we ventured out to try and find some of my lifers, i.e. ringtails, fanalokas, and Indo-Chinese binturong. I was aiming for Chacoan mara as well but had been informed by @gentle lemur the day before that they were no longer there. Never mind, at least three lifers still had potential... Upon entering the zoo proper the first thing I noticed was just how densely packed it was, animals to the left, animals to the right, even animals above in the wire runs going from enclosure to enclosure. Absolutely fantastic! Second thing I noticed was just how much wood and wire was used, definitely a theme to this mini jaunt. But anyway, onto animals. first exhibit I encountered outside was for ringtail, of which one was running around it's exhibit like any small carnivore. Fantastic to see, impossible to photograph. Next door was yellow-throated martens, which remained stubbornly hidden at first. But yeah, ringtails and martens as the first two enclosures really sold me on this zoo immediately. Along with these two species here's a list of other carnivores here; meerkats, African civets, singing dogs, maned wolves, hunting dogs, grey wolves, caracal, cheetah, sand cat, serval, puma, margay, rusty-spotted cat, fishing cat, lynx (signed as Eurasian to subspecies Carpathanian), bat-eared fox, leopard, along with the species mentioned earlier and possibly others as well. I had the fortune to see all but the binturong (boo!) and rusty-spotted cats. Housing for these was very much of a uniform style. Wood and wire cages, maybe a glass panel or two for better viewing, and logs and climbing equipment inside. Some enclosures were better planted than others, and the caracals, cheetahs, and canines had open-topped enclosures but still all had a similar aesthetic. Overall these enclosures work well but I felt the ringtails, leopards, and pumas could do with more space. Primates and Prevost's squirrels were housed in the same style but some species had overhead tunnels connecting indoor to outdoor enclosures. Species-wise the highlights would be howler monkeys, two species of gibbon, douroucouli, and the usual suspects amongst the smaller New World species and lemurs. As I said earlier, most exhibits are similar to the carnivores but tend to work better for certain species. I didn't see the the lemur paddock in use as the lemurs weren't as stupid as me and Thomas, and elected to stay indoors. The rest of the mammals are found in nondescript paddocks with one exception, the sitatunga enclosure is possibly the best individual antelope enclosure I've ever seen. A long valley that's well planted and stretches down a long way to a natural water source, absolutely beautiful. Other paddock animals included a variety of macropods including pademelons and swamp wallabies, tapir, mara, and reindeer, along with Darwin's rhea which are always good to see. Apart from the mammals Exmoor also has a spectacular collection of ibis and waterfowl displayed in imaginative, if uniform (seeing a pattern here?), aviaries, and include such delights as straw-necked ibis and Andean goose, amongst many others. The larger wading birds do all right as well, bar the four flamingos who just didn't look right in their enclosure. Birdy highlights have to be the palm-nut vultures, the newer parrot aviaries (including thick-billed) that are far more substantial than most other enclosures, and finally the pelican lake which is just idyllic. A shame it no longer houses penguins but, along with the sitatunga, was definitely the best looking enclosure there, despite my reservations about wing-clipped/pinioned birds. If you can get to Exmoor then I suggest you do so, a very enjoyable zoo for the enthusiast, and some of the species are enough to make any serious species hunter salivate. Definitely recommended. After this there's a bit more to tie up the day, and I'll try and do a comparison.
For me, Exmoor's densely planted leopard enclosure has always been a highlight, with multi level perching opportunities. Golden-headed Lion Tamarins were a pretty spectacular group last time I looked. The flamingos are a new venture, and very much in the experimental stage.
