It’s a monkey post… do you like monkeys?

We visited Apenheul Primate Park in Apeldoorn yesterday, where monkeys roam freely among the visitors…

Monkeys are very good pickpockets so visitors are given a monkey proof bag on the way in :-)

My favourite primates are the orangutans, I could spend hours watching them play together, climbing and swinging in the trees and on the ropes…

…and hiding under blankets! ;-)

We saw the wanderoos too. Also known as lion-tailed macaques because of the lion-like tuft of fur at the end of their tails.

Looking at this one, I would say they have a lion-like mane too hehe! ;-) They live in the damp forests of southwest India.

Next, a barbary macaque… mostly living in north Africa; but in Europe you’ll find them on the cliffs in Gibraltar. They’re the only primates in Europe that live freely.

This one was staring up into the blank sky for a while, I’m very curious to know what he was thinking.

The gorillas were well hidden in their forest area so I wasn’t able to photograph them, I did spot a miniature gorilla statue though ;-)

These next three images are of white-faced saki’s; however, only the males have white faces (though sometimes more of a golden-orange colour than white); females are grey-brown. They’re fairly small …and I think they’re cute! ;-)

Female above, and male below.

And mom with a two month old baby (born 9-June).

The baby was so cute; each time mom stopped for a moment it would strain it’s neck to look in all directions.

“After this bridge: free ranging monkeys. Have you closed your monkey proof bag?” ;-)

It’s fascinating to watch monkeys groom each other; they have such a look of concentration on their faces. I caught this white-throated capuchin glancing up at the crowd mid-grooming session.

I think the monkeys in the next three images are spider monkeys – I didn’t see a sign but I’m pretty sure :)

We finished our tour of Apenheul with a visit to the squirrel monkeys. Here, the monkey proof bags definitely come in handy! These monkeys get verrrrry close.

So, do you want to know how I know squirrel monkeys like diamonds?

I had crouched down and was resting my hand on the wall to steady myself. A lady next to me was photographing one of the squirrel monkeys with it’s baby (the one in the photo above) and the monkey kept making a grab for her camera and pulling on the lens cap which was attached to the camera on a cord. I don’t know how successful she was at taking a picture but for sure her children were enjoying the cheekiness of the monkeys!

Another monkey came up close to where my hand was. I didn’t move, I just watched. The cheeky little thing came closer and while holding onto one of my fingers with one hand, it made a grab for my ring with the other! So you see, squirrel monkeys like sparkly diamonds. Nope, it wasn’t having mine!

Hope you enjoyed the monkey post! :-)

Best wishes,
~Natalie

ps. if you like wildlife photography, Apenheul are hosting the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition until the end of September :-)

So, it’s official… I’m in the last year of my twenties – and it’s going to be a great year too! ;-) Just as the clock turned midnight, Heiko (my Husband) came to join me on the sofa to wish me a Happy Birthday – and he had a surprise for me too, a fabulous gift.

It was already past midnight so it was officially my birthday and I was allowed to open it :-)

He handed me a large brown envelope; it was addressed to me but with a friend’s address (so that I couldn’t intercept the mail lol). As I turned the envelope over I saw there was a return address written on the back. But before I had time to blink let alone read it, Heiko had taken the envelope off me to check if it was safe for me to read. I wouldn’t have guessed who the sender was so he gave the envelope back to me.

Inside were letters, photographs, a CD, postcards and… an adoption certificate. A smile spread across my face as I made an attempt to translate the (Dutch) text.

Through the local organisation Stichting SPOTS (Save & Protect Our TreasureS), my wonderful and thoughtful husband has adopted a cheetah in my name, a cheetah named Klein.

For several years we have gifted each other with wildlife adoptions on birthdays and Christmases, but this one is different from the rest. It’s not a yearly adoption with a small fee, it’s not a symbolic adoption either, it’s a REAL adoption. I’m one of 40 adoptive parents for Klein, supporting him his entire life at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) Namibia. The adoption programme, set up by Stichting SPOTS, helps to care for the resident cheetahs at CCF which in turn, frees up more of CCF’s budget for use on their programmes for the protection of the wild cheetah population. Klein is the 3rd cheetah adopted by adoption parents in the Netherlands.

Are you wondering why his name is Klein? I thought it meant “small” but it doesn’t! In fact, he is far from small, he’s the largest of the male cheetahs at CCF. Klein was born in May 2000 and has two siblings; a brother named Calvin (who unfortunately passed away in 2002), and a sister named Chanel. Therefore, the trio: Calvin, Klein and Chanel. That explains his name a little better, hey? :-)

Klein and his siblings arrived at CCF when they were just one year old following the death of their mother – she was shot on a game farm and afterwards her skin was used to capture the three cubs. When CCF rescued them 3 weeks later, the cubs were in a very poor condition. Thankfully, following an intensive treatment for bleeding stomach ulcers, they recovered completely.

And here he is, now 10 years old:

:-) And now of course, I’m longing to travel to Namibia to visit Klein and all his cheetah friends! Especially after watching the small video clips of him that came in my adoption package! Heiko, thank you sooooooooo very much! I love it! The most perfect birthday gift ever! :-)))))

The day gets better too, I’m just back from spending a wonderful afternoon with my dear friend, Vinita. We indulged in a fabulous pedicure at the Dutch Oriental Spa in Scheveningen and oh boy, what an indulgence! It was the first time I’ve ever had a pedicure and with my ticklish feet I was so worried I was going to giggle and squirm…. which of course I did, but only a little, it was really lovely! Definitely recommend it! Afterwards we had a late lunch on the beach – nope, no spare ribs this time. Surprised you didn’t I?! But we did have ice cream. Unfortunately, they were out of After Eight so I doubled up on the white chocolate instead mmmm ;-)

And now.. Heiko is home from work and we’re about to leave for a behind the scenes visit to Blijdorp Zoo. *happy happy* :-)

ps. thank you to everyone that left such lovely birthday wishes on my Facebook page, I didn’t quite manage to reply to everyone yet, but I will :-)

ok, zoo is calling… gotta go!

Today, it was all about the Sumatran tiger cubs at Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam. I hadn’t been for a while and I’d heard from friends that had visited that they hadn’t seen the cubs. But we were hopeful, and our luck was in! As you can see… *super happy tigs* ;-)

They have grown so much since we last saw them at 2 weeks old! And they are much more active now too. It was wonderful to see them exploring their enclosure and one of them came right up to the glass where we were stood, peering out at the crowd that had gathered. They’re adorable.

Born on 21 May, they’re 6 weeks old now. Heiko and I are so happy Blijdorp has tiger cubs after all the years of trying to pair Alia (mum) with Hermes (dad). It’s 8 years since there were tiger cubs at Blijdorp, it was high time!

The beautiful Alia… first time mum and doing brilliantly :-)

These next two are especially for Nikki, if she’s reading this… :-)

We stopped for a snack at Cafe ‘Panda Poffertjes’ (you can guess what we had to eat, right? no, the poffertjes were not made from pandas – tsk tsk!) Next to the cafe is the Red Panda enclosure, and as we got up to leave, Heiko spotted one of the Red Panda’s watching us. They are just so cute! And this one played peek-a-boo with us, looking down at us from either side of his comfy branch.

We also visited Crocodile River to see Klippie, the Klipspringer (“rock jumper”). Klippie is a fairly new resident of Blijdorp Zoo and came from Artis Zoo. There are only 5 Klipspringers in captivity in Europe, hopefully one day we’ll see Klippie with a mate :-) For now, he shares his enclosure with hyraxes, tortoises, and various bird species. I love how they stand on their “tip-toes” ;-) It’s amazing to see them in the wild, running and jumping high up on the rocks!

I hope you enjoyed this small selection of images, thanks for stopping by :-) For more photos from Blijdorp Zoo, head over to our zoocrew.eu gallery for Blijdorp and enjoy!

Best wishes,
~ Natalie

Yay for Spring! Yesterday, Heiko and I once again visited Blijdorp Zoo; this time for the Vrienden van Blijdorp AGM and the official opening of the new Serval enclosure. What started off as a very foggy morning turned into a beautiful, warm spring day with blue skies and sunshine.

After coffee and cake aka “a gooey chocolate muffin fix” ;-) we headed into the Oceanarium for the AGM. We chose to sit in the second room where the video from the main auditorium is projected, because on our right hand side was a glass wall with a view of the sharks and the large sea turtles which were swimming close by the window. A very nice view!

After the AGM we had drinks with the other members of Vrienden van Blijdorp and then left to have some lunch before the official opening of the Serval enclosure at 14:00.

When we arrived at the Serval enclosure there was already quite a large gathering. Through the glass we could see one of the Servals and nearby the sign for the enclosure was boarded up with wooden planks.

To mark the opening, the wooden planks were removed by Greet and Henk Gerritse and the two Servals were let out into the outdoor part of their enclosure.

Servals are medium-sized African wild cats with beautiful markings, as you can see in these images.

One of the Servals was a little timid and stayed in the same place whereas the second boldly walked around the enclosure finding small cuts of meat to feed on.

This serval knew there was meat nearby, but where was it?

Found it…

Ooooh more meat somewhere here…

mmm ;-)

You can see in the image below that the first serval still had not moved from it’s spot.

Eventually, with it’s body close to the ground, it carefully and slowly crept along the fence line and paused behind a rock, keeping a watch on the crowd of onlookers.

Meanwhile the second one was enjoying all the snacks!

Their new enclosure is so much nicer than their previous space, and so much bigger too :-) Zebra, giraffe and greater kudu occupy the adjacent enclosures and were keeping a close watch on their new neighbours.

All but three of the giraffe were outside and whilst we were there we watched two males necking (fighting). Necking is where each giraffe alternately swings it’s head and hits the other (usually on the rear) with their horns. The longer the neck the heavier the head is and the greater the force in which the giraffe hits the other. The large male, Fehari, had the advantage and the smaller male must surely have ended up with a rather bruised rear!

Inside the giraffe house we saw the baby giraffe, born one week earlier on Easter Saturday. She’s a girl! The keepers have named her Doris. She was hiding behind the partitions and then made a dash for the opposite side of the enclosure and squeezed underneath the far partition out of sight. Below is the only image I was able to get of her.

Hopefully, if the weather cooperates, she will take her first steps outside next week :-)

This time we were also successful in seeing the baby Swamp wallaby! Because of the bright sunlight the light was very contrasty so the wallabies were very difficult to photograph. Here you can see the head of the baby peeping out of the mother’s pouch, hope to get a better photo next time :-)

The young will stay in the mother’s pouch for 8-9 months but will continue to suckle until about 15 months. Look out for them when you visit – they’re opposite the Eagle Owl enclosure, near the wolves.

This is the first time that I also photographed the Vicugna, usually we walk right past them but the light was beautiful and so of course I had to stop to photograph them. They are the smallest of the camel family and are found in the mountains of South America. An interesting fact I read on the sign of the enclosure:

Wool fit for royalty
Incas have collected the vicugna’s fine wool for centuries, freeing the animals after shaving them. The wool was only to be used by royalty! When the Europeans arrived, they hunted the vicugna to the brink of extinction. The vicugna was protected in 1974, and their number has risen to 150,000.

Of course, we also saw the polar bears, Erik and Olinka :-)

Hoping (along with a lot of others) that Erik and Olinka will be successful in having polar bear cubs… shame that it did not happen for Erik and Tania.

Hope you enjoyed this post, and a nice Spring weekend :-)

I have some exciting news to share! Some of you will know that my husband, Heiko, and I are very passionate about wildlife and in an effort to raise awareness for wildlife conservation we set up a website: www.zoocrew.eu Please do stop by to check it out, you’ll find zoo news/reviews, conservation articles, forums and photo galleries. We also have a Facebook fan page and you can follow us on Twitter too :-) But before you go off exploring, let’s first get back to my exciting news, it starts with a short story…

In August 2008, Heiko and I visited the Painted Dog Conservation project in Zimbabwe. Their efforts to educate the local community and involve them in the protection of Africa’s Painted Dogs is just brilliant. We were impressed!

There are very few Painted Dogs (also known as Wild Dogs) remaining in the wild. Being nomadic, they travel great distances, only staying in the same location when they have pups. So when we came across a pack of 24 dogs during our trip to Tanzania in February 2009, it was incredible; we could not believe our eyes. It was one of the highlights of our trip! I’ve blogged about our sighting in a previous post and you can see some of my photos here.

In March 2009 after we returned home, we visited Beekse Bergen Safaripark to attend a talk given by Greg Rasmussen and Peter Blinston from the Painted Dog Conservation project and it was great to see how the project was progressing. We also learned that a lot of the support for the project comes from the Netherlands, there is a foundation here: Stichting Painted Dog Conservation.

We wrote an article about the talk on our website (here’s the link) and not long after, we received an email from the Chairman of Stichting PDC and our support of the Painted Dogs snowballed, as did their support of zoocrew.eu.

When it came time to design the Painted Dog Conservation 2010 Calendar, Stichting PDC asked if they could use the photos we had taken in Tanzania and we sent off several high resolution images to their designer/printer.

Last week I went to visit the Chairman to collect several of the calendars for our own distribution. We weren’t sure what to expect but we knew that one of our images had been selected. I assumed it would be a standard wall calendar with 12 images, one for each month. What I discovered was a 100x70cm poster-size wall calendar, with only one image: mine! And the image credit is for zoocrew.eu! So exciting!

I know some of you have been waiting to see what it looks like, and it’s so hard to give a sense of scale in a photo… but here you go, here’s a peek:

Yay, image credit for zoocrew.eu :-)

And here’s the whole poster:

Awesome! Thank you Stichting PDC!

If you see this poster in your local zoo, or anywhere – the distribution is big! Let me know, or send me a pic, I’d love to see! :-)