Being in love

That feeling you get when you have fallen in love.  You can't eat, you can't sleep, your heart beats way too fast, you get palpitations just thinking about your love…

That is what it is like being here in India volunteering at a croc park.

I have fallen head over heals in love with the crocs (and a few turtles too).  I could stay here forever just to wake up each morning and peer over a wall to see a crocodile basking or swimming or eying up a meal…

I lie awake some nights and rerun my days activities.  I am shocked by some of the amazing things I get to do.  The other day I got inside the enclosure of a very big saltie while the pond was being drained and cleaned.  How often do you get up close and personal with such a giant creature?  He is huge and so powerful!

I have been babysitting a slightly deranged turtle who has no ability to stay on her feet.  Several times each day and night I have to turn her back after she has flipped onto her back.  Sadly, I hoped she would improve but that hasn't happened.  I think it is nearly the end of the road for Miss Uppsy Daisy…

Yesterday I helped feed 3 very big gharials!  Robin is nearing 6 metres and his girls Nancy and Julie are substantially smaller.  The girls get fish thrown in the water near their snout and they grab the fish and eat it.  While His Lordship Robin gets fish placed in his mouth on a stick!  Talk about spoilt!  He has the end of his upper snout missing as a result of a fight some time back so he deserves a little extra attention, but fish on a stick is quite a bit of extra attention!

Yesterday I had to find 10 large snails to feed the Blue Tongues skinks.  The day before I had helped find another 10 large snails and Aaranya had broken the shells and got the meat out of them while I looked on and squirmed whilst exclaiming an occasional '"Ewwww gross!!"  But yesterday I bravely found the snails alone and waited for Aaranya to arrive and break them open for me.  She was busy feeding crocs in the nursery so instead of waiting, I took to it myself.  Using the back of a meat cleaver, I bust my first snail and managed to take out the meat in a slightly kack-handed way.  I was up to about 6 when Aaranya arrived back.  She was very impressed that I had given up the EWWWW's and done it myself.  So was I!  I then took it over the Blueys and I hope they appreciate the effort I went to!  I won't find out until later today when I clean their tank out.  I hope for their sake that they have eaten them all…

I love it here, I love the variety of the things I do and I love the crocs (and some of the turtles).

A confession, a tiny rhino, a squirrel and the Morelet's

I don't know what others think in the photo below, but without being too judgemental, I suspect someone is trying to hide something and I think given the chance to confess, we may well find out what happened to a certain flying creature…  Unfortunately with egrets and herons living in exceptionally close proximity to crocs, this is a reasonably common occurrence.  But bear in mind they also receive a lot of protection from other predators by living within the croc enclosures.  Only the slow, weak or foolish get eaten so I guess it could be called 'survival of the fittest'.

This rather large flying creature is apparently a rhino beetle.  It took some time to get this photo as it was intent on flying away, we eventually managed after it realised it wasn't going anywhere until after I got a photo.  When it was flying it reminded me a lot of the New Zealand weta.  A huge, almost cumbersome creature.

Rhino beetle

The Indian squirrel is tiny!  About the size of a chipmunk (if you've seen one of those) or a medium/large rat (I suspect we have all seen one of those!)  It is incredibly fast and it has taken me weeks to get a photo that isn't just a blur from one edge of my photo to the other!  Very cute indeed.

I am observing some Morelets hatchlings each night and this is a photo of the second time they were platform fed.  Up until now they have been tong fed - long metal tongs that allow us to control who gets what in terms of food.  They each had turns so Mr Feisty-Pants (name changed for privacy reasons, lol) who would leap at the tongs as soon as he saw them coming got the first bit and then the rest took turns while Mr Feisty-Pants attempted to get to the tongs before the slower more timid crocs.

Mr Feisty-Pants on the right guarding the food while the littlest one tries to climb aboard

The ranks don't seem to have changed now we place all the food on a platform and they help themselves.  Mr Feisty-Pants is still the first to eat and the others have to be quick witted and clever to get to the food.  They are getting much better at this now and the last feed they had, everyone got a good share of the food.

Beef day

Thursday was beef day for the crocs.  Twice a month huge amount of beef that is already chopped into portions arrives and it gets sorted into buckets for different enclosures.  The beef is all parts of the cow as it is important for crocodiles to get skin, bones and offal.

The fun part is getting to throw it into the pens and watching the crocs down it in single gulps.  They enjoy their beef days very much.  My aim got a lot better after a few direct hits of a lump of bony meat straight onto the crocs head - the noise was very loud, being bone landing on bone.  I suspect if the crocs could talk, their words would have been unrepeatable.  Poor things!

The idea is to ensure that the smaller crocs who don't push forward get their share of the meat too.  So long distance throwing of beef is important.  I was rather proud of myself when I threw 2 lumps in a row that landed inside the crocs jaws.  I think we were in sync with each other.

Selecting a piece... 

Eyeing up a deserving beast

And throwing it!

I much prefer the fish feeding days…  Beef is a bit stinky and sticky!

Jaws III, a very big saltie

Jaws is the star attraction at MCBT and people come on Sunday to see him get fed.  He's about 17 feet long and chunky.  He doesn't venture out of his water that often when people are around, but when he does, he's very impressive.  Having seen Lolong last year and at 21 feet, he's hard to beat in terms of impressive, but Jaws III is pretty cool.

His favourite person feeds him while Colin Stevenson does a talk about Jaws III and crocodilians in general.  Jaws gets to eat lots of yummy meaty stuff after an obligatory walk around to show his impressive size.

I love crocs!

OK, so you already knew this, but having been at Madras Croc Bank now for 7 nights, I can honestly say, my love for crocs is doing nothing but growing!

Each day I get to walk around the enclosures and look at 18 of the 23 species still alive today.  Sometimes they're hiding and I don't seem them, sometimes they are all out basking so I see several.

There are always 100's of muggers (Crocodylus palustris) to be seen so no matte what, I get to watch them everyday. There are a couple of muggers of note. One I have seen every day I have been here. She sits where she built her nest and guards it with great maternal responsibility. She doesn't know there are no eggs in her nest though. There are too many muggers here so they cannot allow more to hatch at this point.

The other mugger of note, is a tiny wee thing about 2 years old.  It was probably missed when egg collections were done a couple of seasons ago so the lucky little blighter hatched and has survived to this point.  A year of so back there were 6 apparently.  Now there are probably only 2 left - the other one lives in a pipe and sits there basking with only his head out.  They are at high risk here with such large numbers of adult muggers in the enclosure and also with the nesting water birds living above.  But somehow this little fellow has beaten the odds so far and I see it basking at the end of the day in a spot near some tree roots.  This determined little croc deserves an award for bravery and canniness!

Brave little mugger 

I have fallen in love with the gharials (Gavialis gangeticus).  They are so incredibly unique - there is nothing in the world like them.  They are extremely shy and very wary of humans especially, which is a very good thing for such an endangered species.  There are many reasons this croc hasn't increased in numbers in the wild with al the support it gets, but too complicated to go into here.  Some political, some local communities, some logistical…

Male gharial underwater 

Feeding the gharials in the nursery is a highlight of my week.  I love to go in and throw the little fish to them.  I aim for the side of their snout and if my aim and their preparedness work right, they snap their head sideways and voila! a fish ends up in their teeth.  They manoeuvre the fish so it is head first (so the fins etc don't get stuck in their throat) and down it goes.

The little gharials are even shyer then the bigger ones - they are used to being pushed out when it comes to food especially so it's vital to ensure they get a good feed too.  They take a fish and climb back onto the land and eat it, then climb in again.  Very cute wee things.

Melting moments

I have been in Chennai, southern India (about 45 minutes south of Chennai) for 5 days and I cannot believe how hot it is!  The days are not as humid as the nights oddly.  In a way it is better that way as working in 96% humidity wouldn't be fun.  But then again, trying to sleep in 96% humidity is a challenge in itself.

But to be honest, although I moan about the heat, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.  I am spending about 6-7 weeks as a volunteer at  Madras Crocodile Bank Trust.  It is an incredible place dedicated to the conservation and survival of reptiles  - especially crocodiles.  Hence me being here!

This morning I got to dig up a nest of eggs laid by a gharial.  I never thought I would have this sort of opportunity, and to be so hands on is just mind blowing!

This afternoon was not quite so glamourous (if collecting eggs could be called glam??).  We cleaned out an enclosure that has 6 turtles in it.  They are 2 different species and both endangered, one critically.  They were surprised to find their water disappearing, and while they could, they hid below in the dirty water.

We scrubbed and scrubbed until all the walls and the floor of the water area was clean.  There was a massive amount of algae growing so it was a big job.  We decided that if we did this every day we would look like muscle builders within a week or two!  This was definitely a melting moment in the afternoon heat!  The best part was getting in the cold shower afterwards and cleaning all the algae off myself!

Yesterday I got to feed a large pair of African slender snouted crocodiles.  They have been taught to come to the tapping of a stick while calling their names stick.  They touch the stick with their snout.  We then rub their nose with the stick and they open their mouth and we throw a fish in.  It's a pretty amazing experience!

Feeding the juveniles in the nursery is also exciting.  We start by sorting fish into sizes (I think there is about 500kg of fish??)  we get tiny fish for the babies and medium fish for the medium crocs and big fish for the big crocs and then the remainder gets thrown into the mugger enclosures and they finish it off!  We wash the fish and take it into the nursery and throw the fish to each gharial just beside their snout so they can grab it.  These guys have serious teeth!  But they are one of the most beautiful crocs in my eyes.

Butterfly Creek, Auckland

I had yet more need for cheering up so I emailed Butterfly Creek in south Auckland and asked if I could meet them and discuss crocodiles et al.

They were originally a butterfly house but expanded in about 2009 to include crocodiles - as you do!  I asked why crocs and they were after something different that hadn't been done before in NZ.  They certainly have something different!

Goldie and Scar are the 2 big boys, Goldie about 4.9 metres and Scar about 5 metres.  They also have 3 American Alligators and some baby salties.  They have a few other creatures but I confess, I didn't really notice them…

I got to ask lots of questions and learnt a lot about behind the scenes of a zoo.  

Really enjoyed myself!  Thanks very much to Amy and Paul.

Amy playing with Scar

Paul and one of the small salties

Besties having cuddles, so cute :)

American Alligator

Goldie

Scar, playtime

Hungry…  and focussed

Jumping

All those teeth!

Ready to jump

Newly hatched butterly

The big bus in Barcelona and a croc of a handbag

Today we took the Barcelona Bus Turistic all around town.

We intended taking the red route first, but got on the blue one near our hotel instead. First stop for us was MontJuic where we wandered around the MNAC (way too long to type out in full) art museum. Then up to the site of the 1992 Olympics. It felt a bit surreal to think that this was the place of huge hustle-bustle a few (17!!??) years ago. I wasn't inspired to use my camera here though until I found a lovely grass seed head and felt obligated to take it's photo with as many backgrounds as I could find...

Back down to the MNAC and a few more photos and we headed back for the bus. With beautiful views over the city, a warm sun and a man playing guitar, I think I could have sat there for a while.

We took the cable car up and then down the mount to see the view. Not particularly mind blowing, but pleasant all the same. The cable car running down to the harbour front was out of action due to strong wind (hadn't noticed the wind myself...).

To cut a long (boring) story short, we stayed on the bus until the point that we could do a swap to the red one. This was more interesting as it took in quite a few of Gaudi's buildings - what a clever and unique man he must have been!

Along the way we went past a shop called Croco-Park so after having completed a full circuit we stayed on board and headed around again to check it out. Turned out to be a very boring shop with lots of very shiney, glittery leather handbags more suited to... well, someone else...

So with that out of the way we found a Tapas restaurant and ate what we could - that wasn't cooked with the use of gas as the gas was out of order ( did they pay the bill??) in the kitchen. We picked up a cake each on the way home and finally limped into the hotel about 9.30'ish - both exhausted.

Today I saw...

...lots of fishes swimming in the sea.

Two dolphins playing hide and seek - they hide better then they seek.

The skimmiest fish I ever saw - they skim over the water better then I could possibly skim a stone.

And the inside of 3 hotel rooms - and nearly 4 after the internet didn't work in our room.

I did NOT see...

... the American crocodile in Crocodile Lake.

An alive raccoon - road kill doesn't count.

A manatee

Or a mermaid!

Phew - and the day hasn't even finished yet! We're off to start exploring the east side of the Everglades now.

Breakfast at Sanibel

I haven't managed to get to my blog for any serious updates and getting very frustrated about it. So I am going to start from now in the hope that I can back track and fill in the last 3 days later.

We are on a lovely island called Sanibel on the west coast of Florida, very near Fort Myers Beach. Its a lot more sleepy and relaxed then Miami and for the first time in all my USA travels, I feel this is a place I could spend a lot of time and (perhaps!) never tire of the scenery, the weather, the beaches, the people etc.

Tonight we went to a restaurant/bar called The Mucky Duck and sat outside on the sand having a drink, listening to a local man sing his local ditties while the sun slowly slipped below the horizon. Too beautiful!

Earlier today we decided we wanted to eat pancakes for breakfast so off we went to the wonderfully named Island Cow having read that they do a good breakfast. Firstly, the coffee arrived ( more like a cup of acid then coffee) but no milk for Teresa. Then the orange juice and a milkshake, then the notification that breakfasts were now finished and lunch menu only as it was after 11am.

And true it was after 11am, but it certainly wasn't when we put our initial coffee order in...

We left feeling a little disgruntled and decided to head for the Lighthouse Cafe which advertises it's breakfasts as the 'best on the island'. I had eggs/seafood benedict - something I would never have thought as being a good combination, but in fact was divine! The service was fantastic and we left there feeling very happy and of course full!

Next door to the cafe was an intriguing shop full of 'things'. Jewellery, ornaments, etc. I managed to fill a very large bag with alligator paraphernalia while emptying the credit card a little.

Then off to the lighthouse to walk around the point and dip our incredibley hot toes in the sea. It was much too hot by this time and I could not wait to get into the car and get the air con going full blast!

We stopped off at the local antiques shop which turned out to be a real treasure trove of collectables - something for everyone.

And lots of somethings for the crocodile/alligator obsessives too. Another gasp from the credit card...

I've worked out that so long as I don't buy too many more crocodylians then I can probably fit it all in my suitcase if I throw out all my clothes and anything else that isn't a croc/gator related item.

I am feeling very tired and will be getting up very early to go on a gator hunt so must get off to bed.

PS - photos coming soon (I hope)