Spring Fashion Shoot at the Park!

Just recently we were pleased to host a Spring fashion shoot for the Island's newest magazine - Style of Wight. A great team of people came and spent the morning with us - including Rhian and Peter the two models. We were fortunate enough to have blue skies and sunshine (albeit quite fresh temperatures!). I took a couple of images that give a taster of some of the goings-on.

For those of you who know Dippy (our Head Honcho Humboldt Penguin) you'll notice he's looking his usual 'relaxed in the limelight self' whilst Damien (the Green-Crested Touraco) had to be curtailed from flying into the model's hair (as he so loves to do!) Rhian and Pete spent some fun time working with various animals and birds - you can see the latest edition of Style of Wight for the full article .....

Easter Quiz Trail at Seaview Wildlife Encounter

Don't forget our Easter Wildlife Quiz Trail happening all over the Easter weekend from Good Friday to Easter Monday. This is the Park's biggest event of the year and is hugely popular with children and adults! Visitors collect their FREE entry form at the entrance reception and hunt for all the fun, educational wildlife clues hidden around the Park whilst still following the popular "hands-on" programme of wildlife events with informative keeper presentations.

Each child receives a delicious creamy easter egg if they have found all the answers and the star prize is a giant easter basket full off goodies and a free family pass for four! Come and join in the fun this easter at our beautiful multi-award winning Park.

Fluffy and co visit Little Hayes Residential Care Home

Fluffy, Prescilla, Cornelius, Collin and Cassandra decided that they didn't only want to visit Island Primary schools but also Residential Homes too! So off we went to Totland where we recieved a warm welcome from the residents of Little Hayes Residential Care Home.

It seemed that Prescilla our Bearded Dragon felt right at home and lapped up the attention from the residents and even Collin the Cockroach was a hit!

The residents of Little Hayes thouroughly enjoyed their visit from Tara, Fern and the critters, so much so that they would like us to return in a few months time!

Our Two New Arrivals - AMAZING ALPACAS!!

We're absolutely thrilled to announce the arrival of our two Huacaya Alpacas - just in time for our opening date on 27th March! We can't wait to share these two gorgeous boys with our visitors - they're just like giant, ginger teddy bears - so inquisitive, gentle and with such cute faces!

Unnusual Wallaby Joey - a Springtime surprise!

We're really thrilled to have an Albino Joey being carried in a Brown Wallaby mother's pouch - quite unnusual, there's currently no Albino male here at the Park to have impregnated the female - so it must be a genetic throw-back!

Humboldt Penguin Chicks soon to be hatched!

The above image: Baby penguins when they are around two months old!

Spring is definately in the air! Our established Humboldt Penguin breeding pairs have been very busy of late - mating, collecting nest material, more mating, stealing nest material from other penguin caves, laying eggs and now all eight breeding pairs are sitting tight.

They sit for between 39-42 days and the male and female both take turns in incubating the eggs. The image above shows a 2 day old baby penguin - very cute!

Their hatch weight can be anything from 70 grammes up to around 90 grammes ( a good healthy weight).

We'll keep you updated when the first eggs start pipping....should be around the first week of April.

Don't forget the Park opens in two weeks time - March 27th!

Shooo what a week ....press, media, dips and exciting new arrivals!

It kicked off on Monday with the 'Cash in the Attic' shoot at the Penguin Pool ..... then on Tuesday we hosted a fashion shoot with the Island's newest, most exciting magazine, Style of Wight; we're not allowed to say too much yet, nor publish any photos, but look out for the next edition of Style of Wight due in 2 weeks time..... then came Wednesday and Isle of Wight Radio came to interview the Animal Keepers for a radio promotion that we're doing with them next week .... so don't forget to tune in to Isle of Wight Radio every day next week to hear the clues .....

The real dip in the week came late yesterday with the death of our little abandoned Wallaby Joey. Unfortunately the little chap didn't make it - the natural world can be harsh sometimes .... we did all we could but this one didn't survive.

With each dip there's a mountain peak to mirror it ..... yesterday also brought new life ...... we have two new arrivals at the Park ..... brand new for 2010 ....... our AMAZING ALPACAS!!! The two boys (they're both about 5 months old) look like giant teddy bears - they're absolutely gorgeous and have already settled in. We can hardly wait to share them with visitors to the Park ..... only a few more days to go before the Park opens on Saturday 27th March. We're hoping to see many old friends and to welcome a lot of new ones.