Furry Critters

Bristol zoo is home to many cute, fluffy and furry beasties, including the Prairie Dogs which many people in North America may be familiar with and the meerkats. Both communities had young pups when I visited who looked like little half sized versions of the adults scampering around. One of the prairie dog young is in the photo below.

The zoo had once more done wonders in re-creating the animals habitats. both had natural compounds with extensive tunnels and burrows and it was nice that the animals were relaxed enough around people to ignore them and get on with their everyday business. In the wild, the prairie dog is prey to many animals so they are constantly on the look out for danger with the adults taking turn as look-outs and as you can see from the photo's they are very well camouflaged too!

There was also a Pudu in the prairie dog pen. The pudu is considered the smallest of the deer family and is naturally found in Chile and Argentina, so in a way the photo above is quite amazing as these two species would not meet in the wild! It was quite amusing as the pudu and prairie dogs are obviously used to each other, but this very young prairie dog obviously needed a closer look. When the pudu passed close by it stood it's ground and the two animals came nose to nose. The pudu eventually wandered off and the little pup looked so pleased with itself as it has stood up to this 'giant' animal!

Next, we saw the meerkats who are native to many parts of Africa. Like the prairie dogs they are sociable animals that live in colonies in burrows. They are well know as being alert and inquisitive with at least one meerkat on alert looking for potential threats. In the zoo, this was no exception and one had taken up sentry duty atop a tree stump while the others played, foraged and sunbathed. As you can see in the photo above, the meerkats had young too, who were intent on getting lunch while we were there.

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Update on mum

Thank you for your well wishes for my mother. I'm afraid the news is not great. Earlier this week she was diagnosed with kidney failure. It appears that everything has been too much strain on her body so she was taken off the IV antibiotics to give her kidney's a rest. The good news is that the failure is not dire, it's just that they are not working properly and after a couple of days they recovered a little.

However, since going into hospital her leg infection seems to have worsened and today she is having an x-ray as the doctor thinks it has spread into her ankle joints too. She is having to go on the IV antibiotics again and this time they will be stronger which will put a strain on her kidneys again. The doctors say that her kidneys will recover afterwards though, but I cant help thinking there are no guarantees. My poor mother is feeling very down though and has been told she is liable to be in hospital for another 2 weeks. I talk to my dad every night and I can tell he is concerned but the positive thing is that this team of doctors are some of the best at the hospital and we have been told that they are determined to sort my mother out this time. Fingers crossed.