Whit Sunday, June 05, 2022 Whitsun!!!
Whit Sunday began as the previous evening ended: counting the corn snakes. While we could only find 8 on Saturday, there were now 9 of them again. One of them must have been hiding very well. We were beginning to fear it might have escaped...
In the afternoon, an attentive visitor came to us and reported that a snake was slithering across the pavement behind the meerkat enclosure. When asked if it was black and had a white spot behind its head on each side, and this was affirmatively answered, it quickly became clear that this was the native and non-poisonous grass snake (Natrix natrix).
Towards late afternoon, our Mexican redknee tarantula lady Isolde made her appearance as a therapy spider. With the support of our two chairpersons, some of the zoo’s guides had persuaded their colleague to confront her fear of spiders right there and then. Quite quickly she had Isolde on her hand for a short time. She didn't really want to look, but just holding Isolde was a big step forward and we can keep looking for the next step.
The weather was perfect and, as expected, the visitor numbers were significantly higher than on Saturday. In the evening, we went to a club member’s garden for a barbecue. More visitors are expected for Whit Monday and we are looking forward to it.
Whit Monday, June 6, 2022 - Final day
Whit Monday again saw lots of human-animal encounters. In the Tropical Hall, our royal pythons Olga and Khaleesi and our Dumeril's boa Mr. Potter were very popular, as were the giant African millipedes (Archispirostreptus gigas), the walking leaves (Phyllium philippinicum) and the walking beans.
Highlights in the Paradise Hall were our corn snakes (Pantherophis guttatus), Honduras milk snakes (Lampropeltis triangulum hondurensis), the 3 Mexican redknee tarantula ladies Lotti, Astra and Isolde and most of all the 5 common northern boas Roxana, Mr Schmidt, Brezel, King & Sheldon in the large enclosure next to the green iguanas.
The late afternoon was spent in hard negotiations, as a young visitor tried to buy one of the three tarantula ladies... preferably Astra, who she had held in her hand that lunchtime. When our darlings were stowed away in the cars around 7 pm, our bearded dragon Dino decided to lift the lid of his box and almost climbed out. Maybe he wasn’t ready to go home yet... who knows.
Four days of exhibition are over. All the animals are now back home recovering in their familiar surroundings ... as are their humans. We’ll dismantle everything on Tuesday when it’s all calmed down.
We would like to thank everyone who visited and supported us over the four days. As always, a big thank you to the Tierpark Gettorf and our great sponsor JBL. We had a lot of fun and are already looking forward to the next exhibition! Exotic greetings and see you soon.
