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Kirsten

Welcome to GIRAFFES at Edinburgh Zoo

It’s been a couple of years in the making, but GIRAFFES have finally returned to RZSS Edinburgh Zoo! When I was growing up, the giraffes were a firm favourite of ours at the zoo (living in the current Rhino enclosure) but back in the late 2000’s giraffes left – now they’re here again! At the moment it’s a bachelor herd, made up of 5 young males until they’re old enough/needed to head off to be a part of a breeding herd. It’s hoped in the future that Edinburgh can hold a breeding herd, but bachelor herds do play a key role in the breeding programmes too.

The giraffes came from 3 different zoos in England and Ireland last month and after a settling-in period members were invited to attend various preview tours and events that were on offer – this is a great opportunity to get up close before anyone else, and has also served as a bit of a ‘soft-opening’ for the giraffes to get used to seeing people around before building up to the large numbers who I’m sure will be desperate to come and visit them!

Last weekend I headed out to the zoo to attend a preview tour, and it was great, completely surpassed my expectations and was very informative about these new residents and their brand new home. Hopefully when animals talks are able to be held in the future that giraffes will be on the list because James, our tour guide from the education team (who was formerly an animal keeper at the zoo) was great, he knew everything about giraffes, gave our tour group a very informative guide of the giraffes and their enclosure, and did a great job at answering all of the questions that we had. He can even identify each of the giraffes apart, which is impressive!

The enclosure is located just about at the highest point of the zoo, right up by the lions and tigers, so you will get good workout to get there. It also has both indoor and outdoor viewing areas – we started by heading onto a walkway that goes right into the outdoor paddock and you are at giraffe head-height. There are also two ground-level covered viewing areas at opposite sides of the outdoor enclosure. James began to explain about the enclosure and three of the giraffes almost immediately headed outside to see what was going on. They had a quick bite to eat from one of the feeders but were very interested in the people who had come to see them and they did come over pretty closely to us, which is a similar set up to what I’ve seen with the giraffe enclosures at both Ouwehands and Pairi Daiza, where the giraffe’s head can be right next to you should it want to come close. It was a glorious start to June with the weather, I think the colourings of the giraffes looked even more magnificent in the sunshine!

After watching the giraffes outside, we were then allowed to head to the upstairs indoor viewing area going in one family-group at a time to follow social distances guidelines – there are both stairs and a ramp to get up to this viewing area and a double door entry-way so it is fully accessible. Again at this level you are at giraffe head-height – there were a couple of hanging baskets in the middle of the enclosure and also some wall-fixed baskets with food in them which were keeping the giraffes entertained for the time I spent inside with them. I’m sure that’s something that will never happen again – as I was on my own, I went into the indoor viewing on my own, so it was just me and the giraffes! Four seemed to be quite happy eating away and the fifth (the smallest one) seemed more interested in walking around and trying to disturb the others to get at the food. The smallest one was also still small enough to be able to completely fit under the viewing platform on the first floor, but I’m sure that won’t last long! The upstairs viewing area was quite large, I didn’t see downstairs but I assume it’s about the same size.

After having some time with the giraffes inside there was a bit of a ’round up’ of the tour, and I could ask more questions (as a reproductive scientist, of course this was my area of questioning and James had a great knowledge of all of this too; if you ever get a chance to attend a talk/tour by James then I’d highly recommend!). Then the giraffes headed back outside again – it was great to see them in all areas of their enclosure, they seem to be getting on well with each other and are exploring their new home well. The enclosure (both indoor and outdoor viewing) opens to the public tomorrow (June 14th) so they must have settled in well enough to meet ‘everyone’ which is so great, I think they will be a very popular animal to visit for a long time to come!

Kirsten

Pandas +more | Edinburgh Zoo February 2021

Edinburgh Zoo has re-opened again! Back at the start of January the Zoo decided to shut the doors once again, while the new restrictions didn’t force it, the ‘stay home’ guidance meant there would be fewer visitors than there even were already, so it does seem like the most logical thing to do. However this past week the zoo announced their re-opening plans for weekends only, with the first weekend for members only – I jumped and booked my time slot immediately! Not much has changed since my last visits in November, the one-way system is still in place with just the few indoor enclosures closed (Budongo Trail and Koalas), and the need to book a time slot for entry still in place. This post is panda-heavy, I took almost 200 photos of just the pandas, and not so many of the other animals – but I still had a great day and saw almost all of the animals at the zoo. It’s also really been something to look forward to, hopefully I can make another visit again soon!

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Kirsten

One Year Without Travel

The last time I travelled was my trip to Copenhagen at the end of January 2020 – that ended a busy month with 3 ‘long-weekend’ city breaks which included visiting Belgium and Germany. I got back home on the 1st of February and had no idea there would be no travel for such a long time. I had one trip planned for 2020, in June I was to stay at the Pairi Daiza Resort in Belgium. Luckily that was the only one and it was easy for me to get refunds/vouchers and hopefully the trip will be possible in the future. Also luckily, I hadn’t yet planned anymore travel, but since the lockdown, travel is all I’ve been thinking about!

At first it was quite nice to be at home for a while and being settled – despite loving travelling, there is a stressful element to it – but after a while it’s just been very demotivating with the ‘not knowing’ of when travelling can be possible. I used to live for my holidays – whether they were a real break or even just travelling for a conference – they were really what motivated me at work as something to look forward to, and now there’s nothing like that to look to. But obviously, I’d rather sacrifice not travelling at the moment for a year (or two, but I really hope not more) so that it can be possible again in the future. Without any travelling to actually do, I’ve planned so much theoretical travel that I don’t think there will ever be enough time to get it all done, but I can dream!

I think it’s unlikely I’ll get to travel anywhere this year, sure I’d like to make use of my voucher to visit the Pairi Daiza Resort (and stay in the most amazing hotel with a room looking onto the polar bears) but that will still be there in the future. For the meantime, I’m in my final year of laboratory work for my PhD – not being able to travel is the perfect reason to get my head down and get on with my long to-do list, and in 2022 I will then be working on writing my thesis. I’m hoping if I work hard now, then by the end of it all I can enjoy the perfect trip away. Japan in the dream! Luckily without travel or socialising in the past year-ish, I’ve been able to make some great savings and really work towards making my ‘I finished my PhD trip’ a reality.

I’m glad my last travels before the pandemic were great ones, and I saw pandas, what more could I ask for? But it’s been a year and I’m having some panda (especially panda cub) withdrawals. I still have quite a few posts to share about my travels in the past few years, I hope those will see me through until I can have a new trip to share about.

Do I wish we could have all been out and enjoying the world, of course, but it’s important to think of the bigger picture at the moment still. Keep safe!

Kirsten

Lanterns & Lights – Edinburgh Zoo 2017 to 2020

For the past 4 years, including this one, winters in Edinburgh have brought some fantastic Giant Lanterns of China events to Edinburgh Zoo! Each year has had a different theming, although this years event is Christmas Lights themed rather than using lanterns – it was still a super fun event and I think could be something combined using both light effects and lanterns for events in the future. Edinburgh Zoo was one of the first zoos to have a lantern event, particularly in the UK, and these are definitely becoming very popular events now to brighten up the cold winter nights! Some of the Giant Lantern events have even won Giant Panda Global Awards too, which is a fun accolade for the events^ This post is photo-heavy, so I will write a little about each of the annual events then leave you to enjoy the pictures of some of the fantastic lantern and light displays that I’ve enjoyed over the years =)

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