Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe.....

Yep he did nip one of GracieG's fingers - this is the selection process! 

G, M and I went to Banham Zoo today for a very delayed xmas present I'd bought G of a Feeding the Meerkats experience (which I obviously had to do too!!!). We had 20 mins in their enclosure, sitting on one of their logs whilst the keeper put live mealworms on our laps which they climbed over us to find. They were sooooo cute but we had been told we couldn't stroke them, not least for our safety. They were much smaller than I expected and we had to be very careful not to tread on them. They all seemed very taken with our walking shoes as you can see in my postcard extra. I took my camera in but hid it most of the time under my coat so they couldn't get to it - they are quite curious.

I have mixed feelings on zoos as they do a fantastic job on conservation and education, but the old zoos with small cages are not good. Here they'd done a reasonable job of giving the animals space and designing their enclosures such that cages weren't used where ditches etc could be used instead. They also included an excellent Bird of Prey flying display in the price. I've added a postcard of some of the other animals in Extras.