Spring is in the air

Spring has definitely sprung up in these northern climes! Not because the flowers are sprouting, the hedge is greening up, the male penguins are getting their nests ready - no - I had my hat off for extended periods today! A sure sign.

Zoo Day, but it was a bit of fill-in. The planned speaker wasn’t there, and so the resident Education Officer pulled out a ‘Climate Change’ talk that he uses with school kids.

Lots of graphs shooting upwards
Lost of graphs shooting downwards
Video clips of Al Gore
Video clips of David Attenborough
Lists of things we can do:
Turn the central heating down a bit
Switch off the TV, not 'stand by'
Energy saving light bulbs
Don’t buy asparagus out of season
Car share etc etc.

Talk about preaching to the converted... Yawn

He had thought up a couple of slogans:

Car share
to save a bear

and

Fill your recycle bin
to save a penguin

‘Now we can have some fun,’ he enthused.

He wanted us to get into groups and think of better slogans.

Not my idea of fun on a sunny day!

I sneaked out and had fun watching the penguins instead. The Gentoo males have been setting up their nests in preparation for the arrival of the females. The man-made 'nests’ are rings of concrete which enable them to collect small pebbles from a pile deposited in a corner of their enclosure. They busy themselves picking the ‘nicest’ ones and taking them back to make their 'ring-of-concrete-zoo-nest’ look the most inviting. Very sweet to watch.

This one was obviously thinking his good looks - not his superior pebble collection - will win him a mate. I think he’ll be snapped up!