All Creatures Great And Small

I’ve been spending the week off to coincide with the kids Autumn holiday week. I did have great plans to take them out to various places but my daughter decided to spend Monday doing an impression of Linda Blair from The Exorcist (which I now discover is actually the actress’s name – the character was Regan). Anyway, after spending a day removing pea soup from the furniture, carpet, local priest etc she wasn’t really in a fit state to go out on the fun filled week I’d planned. This was probably just as well as I was also looking after our friend’s dog which is a cross between a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig and a tank. Needless to say I couldn’t walk the legs off the mutt and even after a five mile march he could still happily pull me over when I was holding his lead.

By Friday the weather looked reasonable enough and my daughter well enough to journey out. We decided to give Edinburgh Zoo a go. It’s a few years since I’ve been there and their big selling point is that they now have Giant Pandas. I was a bit worried about this as I thought it would mean that the place was packed out but when we got there the pandas had gone all Marlene Dietrich and weren’t on display. Good – I think they are useless blighters at the best of times. Apparently, some people had left on the spot when finding this out they couldn’t see them – I can only assume that these are the same people who turn up to the Louvre in Paris, head straight to the Mona Lisa and then bugger off having seen that overrated postage stamp.

Edinburgh Zoo is a reasonable size but possibly feels bigger than it actually is given that it is built on a steep hillside. There are a variety of animals there although some of the more iconic zoo animals are missing – there are no elephants or giraffes – but what they do have seem to be well housed and  for the most part look content in that idly-bored-with-proceedings look that zoo animals tend to have. I did try to take a few photographs but I am rather limited by my basic photographic equipment (just my 3MP phone) and the fact that the animals are either lounging far enough out of view to reduce themselves to a dozen or so pixels or moving so damn fast that they don’t stay in focus.

I did get a few reasonable pictures. The Rhea came out pleasingly well although it tried to peck the crap out of someone’s iPad which was hilarious.

I took a picture of this snake which was nicely in view and doing sod-all.





I was very taken with the one horned Indian Rhinoceros (or to use it’s pleasing Latin designation Rhinoceros Unicornis). These are magnificent beasts and they came very close to the viewing gallery.

I tried to get a decent picture of the lions. Just like a domestic cat they are very good at doing nothing much in particular. I did consider chucking a ball of wool at it but I zoomed this picture in to the point of pixilation.




Like any good zoo they have a colony of Meerkats. These ones didn’t have Eastern European accents or sell dodgy insurance products so I think our TV advertising creatives have been lying to us. In fact I don’t know why they gave them Eastern European accents in the first place. South African I could accept. Anyway, the buggers wouldn’t get any closer so I zoomed it to hell. Simples!

If there is one feature that I think is really fantastic with Edinburgh Zoo since I was last there it’s the penguin enclosure. Penguins are really good because they get into the whole being in a zoo thing – this chap was happy to pose for a photo.



This one also posed but I received a text when I was lining the shot up. By the time I sorted that out he had fallen asleep.

The penguin pool has glass viewing panels on the side which allows them to be seen swimming underwater. It’s absolutely mesmerising and allows them to be seen in their natural environment – birds that fly underwater. It’s really astonishing that evolution has pushed them in this direction and incredible to see. Unlike the pandas, of course, who appear to have lined themselves up for a Darwin Award with their inappropriate diet and aversion to reproduction.

Anyway, everyone seemed to enjoy their day out – even my eldest son who appears to have been possessed by the spirit of Kevin The Teenager.