Birthday Boy at the Zoo

Brady was 31 today so his Mum took him to the Zoo .....we saw Tigers and Penguins and Rhinos and Giraffes and we had a picnic and saw a Meerkat eating a rat and we had a hailstone storm and thunder and lightning and touched an Elephant's tooth ........
We are so lucky to have Marwell Wildlife Park on our doorstep it used to be a regular place to visit when my children were small and now they are big they still love to visit ......
(Marwell Wildlife, formerly known as Marwell Zoological Park, is a 140-acre (57 ha) zoo situated at Owslebury in the English county of Hampshire, near Winchester. It is home to over 1,200 animals of 235 different species.
Beyond the park itself, Marwell Wildlife is also a registered charity that works for international conservation, with a particular focus in Africa in addition to work from its base in Hampshire. Its name was changed from Marwell Zoo in 2009 to reflect these wider activities.)

Compare the Meerkat .......

White Rhino ......magnificent creature.....now the facts...
The white rhinoceros is the largest of the five species of rhinoceros and the world's largest land mammal after the three species of elephant. Weight in this animal typically ranges from 1,360 to 3,630 kg (3,000 to 8,000 lb). On its snout it has two horn-like growths, one behind the other and made of solid keratin. The front horn is larger and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length, reaching as much as 150 cm (59 in). The white rhinoceros also has a noticeable hump on the back of its neck. Each of the four stumpy feet has three toes. The color of the body ranges from yellowish brown to slate grey. Its only hair is the ear fringes and tail bristles. White rhinos have a distinctive broad, straight mouth which is used for grazing. Its ears can move independently to pick up sounds but it depends most of all on smell. The white rhinoceros has the widest set nostrils of any land based animal.

Ruffled Lemur catching the rays ...how cool is he .....

And the hailstones were as big as peas and down they came .......

Think they must have forgotten to feed this Python........

Great British spirit ...picnic in the rain ......

Different Meerkats to compare......

The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some super-families have 50 or more members. In captivity, meerkats have an average life span of 12–14 years, and about half this in the wild.
Hope you enjoyed a visit to Marwell Wildlife Park as much as we did ........