Zoo Trip #56: Marwell Zoo (Wednesay 17 Aug 2016)

I last visited Marwell Wildlife on 23rd May to celebrate my birthday with my brother (The Spotlight Kid on Blip) and also had the great pleasure of meeting blipper Miranda1008 in Winchester afterwards.

My brother and I had a picnic watching the Amur tiger Bagai who was sunbathing in the tiger paddock. We didn't know at the time that his partner Milla was nursing three cubs born just two days earlier and that Bagai was a proud first-time father.

Bagai was four in June whilst Milla was seven in July, having come to Marwell in Autumn 2012. This was the first time Marwell had had tiger cubs in a dozen years.

The three cubs were introduced into the paddock earlier this month: two girls, Bailla and Zima, and one boy, Makari. I had come to the zoo with the express purpose of trying to photograph them, and was delighted to find two of them cooling off in a pool with their mother (the third was reclining in a nearby tree out of sight). My blip had to be one of the series of shots I took of them and I have chosen this one of Milla and Bailla (the name is formed from her parents' names). The other pictures will be in the Flickr album along with the other pictures I took that day touring the grounds and visiting the aviary and the otter garden.

I will be back next month, I hope, when the Amur leopard cubs, born a month or so after the tiger cubs, will also be on show.

L.

21.8.2016 (1450 hr)

Blip #1914 (#2164 including archived blips)
Consecutive Blip #000
Day #2337
LOTD #1149 (#1273 including archived blips)

Taken with Pentax K-50 (Red) and Sigma AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro lens

Marwell Wildlife, 17 August 2016 (Flickr album)

Zoo Trip series
Marwell Wildlife series
Tigers series
Wildlife series
Outdoor Places I Have Sat In series

Lozarithm of the Day:
Brian Auger and the Trinity - Tiger (1968)

One Year Ago:
The Old Forge