We got some tickets to an event at Marwell Zoological Gardens that took place after normal hours. Having done some after hours events at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, we were interested to try this. It was a different format from what we had done before. Instead of lots of people being free to roam the zoo with various food outlets around the zoo, this was a more compact group of people. We were escorted by zoo staff including some of the keepers and they took us to specific parts of the zoo and were able to give us answers to any questions we might have while telling us about the animals and what they need/like.
While they wanted to try and keep everyone together, they were very accommodating if you wanted to linger a bit at one area. There was also a buffet mid way through the visit so we could all have a break and some food. The CEO was one of the people taking us around so you could ask any questions of how a zoo operates if you wanted to.
Zoo animals can always be a bit tricky. They do like to spend time in parts of their enclosures that are the least visible. Also, since this was later in the day, some of them were already getting ready to bed down for the night. However, we did pretty well with what we saw. The servals were the most elusive, but we did see one of them from a distance.
The rhinos were the trickiest. They have a large field that they wander around, and it didn’t seem to matter where around the enclosure I was, they were always far away. It almost seemed like they were following us around and making sure they stayed as far away as possible! I had not come with my bigger cameras and lenses and so the photos were a bit distant.
Whether it was smiling while watching the ring-tail lemurs, enjoying the giraffes as they lick everything with their massive tongues, seeing the tiger stretched out and dozing or debating whether the Dorcas gazelle where more interested in me than I was in them, I had a ton of fun. There was one enclosure that was particularly fun but that will get its own post. I would certainly recommend this if you are interested.
