Charlie's Chester zoo review 14/8/17

Part 12: An African safari

Next from islands was another adventure for me, a section of the zoo I had not visited, I missed miniature monkeys and went left to the dik dik and bird hide.

In terms of the birds didn't see much bar a few ducks and then in the next enclosure a family of crowned crane of which I saw only the parents.

I then saw my first ever dik dik which was very exciting for me as this is a species that I've wanted to see for a long time so I am happy I have.

Got some more views of the zebra and the roan antelope, I believe another first for me, I got a great view of the young antelope too as I went round the exhibit.

The sitatunga are ok, I would like a pool in the enclosure to see some more behaviours but other than that I've not much else to say.

Aardvarks did as they so normally do, curl up and sleep inside.

Saw the wild dogs which was very nice indeed especially the almost full blonde one that is a wonderful animal.

Saw the hyrax and babies but the adults are much larger than I remember.

Then came the rhinos. Mothers and calves where active out on the paddock and where a joy to watch especially the pair in the enclosure by the meerkats. They were playing around and it was just lovely.

Pretty sure I saw gabe as well which made me happy!

I also did tsavo aviary for the first time seeing the weavers, red winged starling, blacksmith plovers, the royal starlings and the crested Guinea fowl, including one chick. All where nice species and all lifers again.

No sign of the wattled stork but did see some more crowned cranes and a pair of black stork.
 
Part 13: The end

With Tsavo done, the end of the trip was near. We payed for some photos as jeep sakes and then we went to leave.

While other members of my party where occupied, I took a look at the warthogs, while I have seen this species before I had never at Chester, despite knowing they where there. This time though I did take the time to see them which was nice, I realised that here I had skipped over stuff I had seen before like the pandas and owls for new species like the dik dik and warthogs.

After this my party do as I always demand on Chester trips, the elephant house.

I got my first glimpse of the magpies here having not seen the species in the nissan hut, it was only a short look but nice non the less.

Inside most of the heard where visible with great views of the two youngest in the heard: aayu and indahli. The heard are just a joy to watch, being my favourite animal I could gladly sit and watch elephants for hours on end.

I did get a nice glimpse of the belangers tree shrew, tinged with sadness due to the recent move of the cloud rats, that I just missed! Meaning I've missed them both in Chester due to the move and in London due to my fear of nocturnal areas when I was younger which Is stupid now!

Also a nice spot was the roti island snake necked turtle, which was a lot smaller than I thought.

Finally, the last animals of the day where the prevosts squirrel. I believe I saw all 8 running around the enclosure, which was pretty good.

And so that was the end of my trip and it was my best visit yet to the zoo, I saw so many lifers, so many babies and so many animals! It was an amazing day and I cannot wait to visit again!
 
I believe I had been 4 times, the last being 2015. In fairness I'm not sure as we didn't visit in a while before we went in 2015.
 
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