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.

Egrets, ears and ewwwwww!

The last few days have been manic.  We are cleaning virtually the whole place as there is an inspection on Monday.  My main job has to been to scrub bird poop off walls surrounding the enclosures and a few pond scrubs too.  Its dirty smelly work, but somewhat satisfying to see the difference once each section is finished.

I am looking forward to Monday evening very much indeed!

I have also been feeling rotten the last couple of days and during the night I discovered I had another ear infection.  I am very unimpressed as this is the second one in just over a month.  Considering I don't remember having one in my adult years at all, then to have two like this is very frustrating!  I only have half a course of drugs as for some reason the Dr only prescribed that for me.  So I am hoping I can source another half course.  Cross fingers!

One of the night heron chicks on a fence int he pond

There are 2 night heron chicks who have fallen from their nest and are in the Siamese and Nile enclosures (side by side enclosures).  They've been there for several days now and I can't help but wonder what their fate will be.  They are probably not old enough to source their own food yet.  They drink from the crocodile ponds but so far the crocs have left them alone.  They can't fly yet either so I suspect it won't end well…  Poor little things.

A night heron

An egret at sunset

Egret

Egret egg fallen from a tree (hatched - egg is empty)

Unfortunately when you have a crocodile park and a nesting zone in the trees above, there are often sad tales of untimely endings.  Both night herons and egrets nest here.  It is an amazing sight to watch them building nests and feeding young.  The noise is incredible, especially when the macaques try to raid the nests!  The birds all start to 'scream' and they dive bomb the monkeys.  Sometimes the birds win and sometimes not.

The alligaor and the heron

Yesterday afternoon we went out the the edge of the Everglades and did a short walk.

First up was a great blue heron. It is a huge bird - up to 4 feet tall and 7 foot windspan. He was sat in the grass with just a bit of neck and his head showing.

A short distance further and we spotted a young gator - I'm guessing last years baby - and then some more tiny ones.
We watched for a while and then walked on a bit further.

The heron suddenly flew up and landed on the path in front of us and slowly and slyly started to stalk the baby gators. We watched as the heron got closer and closer and had his head lowered to catch his prey.

Suddenly there was a splash and a rustling of the reeds and shrubs around the waters edge. The mother gator was on her way to protect her babies!


The heron stopped dead and while still eyeing up the babies, was also fully aware of the presence of the big gator.

We were fasinated and really wanted to see the outcome - one way or the other. But a group of people walked past and the heron slowly backed away and the situation was over.

I have never been lucky enough to watch something like this and it made me feel like I was watching a nature program - without the narration.