I was lucky enough to visit Wingham wildlife park for my last visit last month. This was the last visit out of my four visits to the park for when I won the junior journalist competition last year. I visited with my Mum and little brother, Jacob.
I was so happy to see Wingham open again because I felt sad when I knew that all the zoo’s had to close because of the corona virus. I was excited to see all the animals and thought that they would probably be excited to see visitors arriving at the zoo again. Some changes have been made to the layout with one way systems in the indoor areas to help keep everyone safe.
We visited all the animals during our visit but I will just write about my favourites.
I was very excited to visit the chimpanzees as I find them so interesting to watch. They were being cleaned out when we arrived and all the adults were snuggled together watching the keepers. The baby chimp was being really naughty and trying to get all the grown ups to play with her when all they wanted to do was relax.
I felt very lucky when the baby chimp came all the way up to the window and walked along in front of all the visitors, she looked like she was really showing off.
Another area we really enjoyed was the tropical house. There seemed to be so many more birds since the last time we visited and I don’t know if that is because there are actually more birds or because we just didn’t see them all on our last visit. I really liked watching the lorikeets, they were super noisy all talking at the same time. Many of the birds were eating on the feeding platforms and were picking up the bits of fruit with their feet and eating them. I loved seeing them on their feeding platforms as we got to see them up really close and could see all their bright coloured feathers. There were a few times when we were walking around that it felt like we might have to duck our heads because the birds were flying so close to them – this made us laugh lots.
We were also really lucky to see the giraffes for the first time since they arrived at the park. They had such a lovely outside space to enjoy but when we visited they were in their indoor area. We were up in the viewing area and could see them from above which was really cool. They had branches hung up for them to eat and the smallest giraffe was really enjoying himself crunching on the sticks. We were looking in the giraffes outside area, the giraffes had long poles with baskets on the tops and we were trying to work out what they were and we realised that they were actually bowls for the giraffes treats or food to go in but they had to go high up so that the giraffes can eat standing up.
When we went to see the penguins, most of them were out sunbathing, all standing in a line and enjoying the sunshine. There were one or two who were in the water swimming around, playing together and having lots of fun. I really enjoy visiting the penguins as there are lots of them and they are interesting to watch, I especially enjoy watching them in the water swimming.
We spent ages looking at the Binturong’s who were lovely to watch, they were so playful and kept rolling over the top of one another and sliding around. We like to read all the information on the animals and I learnt a new word when we were learning about the binturong’s – prehensile. We had to google what the word meant as my mum didn’t know and it means an animals limb or tail that is capable of grasping. So a binturongs tail pretty much acts like a fifth leg when they are climbing.
One animal that I haven’t written about on any of my other visits but one that I always enjoy seeing are the chickens. We keep chickens at home so I always enjoy watching them running around the park. On one of our visits we saw a mummy chicken and her baby which was really special! I love the fact that the chickens just walk around the park and do exactly what they like and they seem to hang around in groups. There are some really beautiful cockerels and I love seeing them strutting around the park, picking up any goodies that they find.
Last of all, I would like to write about the moon bears. One thing I really like about visiting the bears is all the information you can read about all the horrible things that are done to the bears. It makes me sad to know that some humans can be so horrible but I like the fact that we can educate people to try and make sure that we never buy anything that has been made from bears being hurt. There is a cage which the bears are kept in on display which you can climb in and out of to give you an idea of the sort of space the bears have when they are kept, they must feel so sad and squashed. Luckily the moon bears at Wingham are very happy and healthy and are great fun to watch.
I would like to say thank you to all the people that work at Wingham for letting me have my four visits and to Leanne for always meeting us when we arrived. I have absolutely loved being a junior journalist for a year and will continue visiting and supporting Wingham because it’s a great day out and I really enjoy seeing all the animals.
