You’re never too old for a visit to a zoo – are you?
I have been given the opportunity to visit Twycross zoo, I have always loved animals and visiting any zoos, safari parks and rescue centres, I have worked in many rescue centres and I really do have a soft spot for all different types off creatures big and small.
Little Bit about Twycross
Twycross Zoo was founded in 1963 by pet shop owners Molly Badham and Natalie Evans, after the pair’s increasing zoological collection outgrew their three quarter acre site in Hints, Staffordshire.
Twycross Zoo is now renowned as a World Primate Centre and has a wide variety of monkeys and apes including the UK’s only group of bonobos. They have breeding groups of many endangered primate species so often have babies and toddlers playing around in the great ape groups, and in many of the monkey groups. they also hold a range of other species including Asian elephants, snow leopards, penguins, meerkats, tapir, hyena, and the world’s rarest big cat, the Amur leopard.
Set in more than 80-acres, they have around 500 animals of almost 150 species to see, including many endangered animals and native species in the Zoo’s Nature Reserve. You can walk with ring-tailed lemurs in their walk-through enclosure; see a troop of emperor tamarins leap above your head in their treetop exhibit, and watch the Humboldt penguins take their daily walk. Keepers present regular talks and feeds where you can learn a bit more about some of the animals such as the chimpanzees, Asian elephants and South American coatis.
Our Day at the zoo
On Sunday 12th June I was invited along with my Fiance, Mum, Dad and Nephew to have a day out at Twycross Zoo, which isn’t a million miles away. We jumped in the car and it took us around 30 – 40 mins to get there. Unfortunately, it was a wet, rainy miserable day but we weren’t going to let a little rain mess up our day.
We arrived at the zoo around 11am and were told we were due to meet and feed the giraffes at around 3pm, We had kept it a secret from my nephew as it was a surprise for him. We started off looking round at all the other animals, I have always loved zoo’s ever since I was a little girl. I don’t always agree with keeping wild animals in captivity – but that’s a different story.
We started off looking at all the different types of monkeys, Gibbons, orangutans, Bonobos, Lemurs, Howler, Spider and so many more. Not all of them were out as it was a wet miserable day so they kept snug and warm inside you were able to see some of them in there inside enclosures.
We just worked our way slowly round looking at the map as we went along to find what we were going to see next.
We saw, Elephants, Zebras, Kangaroos, Leopards, Otters, Meerkats, hyena’s and many more.
There is also a new attraction at Twycross called “Lorikeet Landing”.
This is where you can buy nectar for £1 a pot and go into the walk through enclosure and feed and have the lorikeet birds land on you. I love birds and would love one as a pet. They are such beautiful creatures and so colourful.
We then stopped for a quick hot drink break to warm ourselves up and to shelter from the rain for a little while.
We continued our way round the zoo and went into the walk in lemurs enclosure, unfortunately we were advised there was only 1 lemur out as all the rest had gone indoors to hide from the rain – Can’t blame them really.
Around 1pm we decided it was time for some lunch, we had brought a picnic with us, we headed back to my dads car and sat and ate it, my mum had made loads of food, sandwiches, crisps, sausage rolls, salad, fruit, drinks and cookies.
After lunch we took a walk over to the “Explorer Zone”
I believe this section to be newish as I have never seen it before. In here we found the butterfly enclosure with an array of beautifully coloured butterflies (apologies for the blurry pictures my camera got steamed up with the humidity).
After we had explored this section it was time for us to all head over to the giraffe house and await our meet with the zoo keeper to feed the giraffes. Aren’t they just incredible animals.
We were given some health and safety rules before we were able to start trying to encourage them inside to feed. The giraffes arrived in Twycross for just over 12 months, so are still fairly new, they are all males and came from 3 different zoos. We all got the chance to feed them. My nephew was very excited to be able to do this.
unfortunately they didn’t play ball as well as we would have like but it was an amazing experience to get up so close and personal with these absolutely incredible creatures. The boys all had names and were called Brad, Epesi and Setant.
You can find out more about what other animals you can get up close and personal with Here. These would make a lovely gift for someone special.
Even though the weather wasn’t on our side and we got merely a little soggy wet to say the least our day at Twycross zoo was amazing and the best bit was defiantly feeding the giraffes.
If you have never been to Twycross zoo head over there this summer.
* Disclaimer – I was given entry to the zoo free of charge for the purpose of a review, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. I paid £75 to be given the opportunity to feed the giraffes.