Livin' It Longleat

One of the first things we did at Longleat was to discover we were getting wet. Very wet. So we dived into the queue for the shelter of the butterfly house and got wet for a bit longer. He was most amused by the fact that you had to queue through the giftshop to get in and go through it again to get out. Dammit though, it's a strategy that works - I bought a big jelly wiggly centipede. (Which the dragons have been most baffled by, all those wobbly tendrils!) The butterflies were very pretty though, orange ones, black and red and blue ones - even ones like these, with seethrough wings. Augh - Ninjaflies!

Yon piccie here -> giant green iguana, happily dozing in the window on that rainy morning. He really was big too, taking up the entire widened windowsill and probably about five foot long. As I sat on a wall. watching him contentedly sleep and His Lordship tried to get a good angle with the camera, the creature half opened his eyes, shut them again and stuck his tongue out. Charming!


This animal sent His Lordship off on one for a good few minutes, merrily singing the "Llama Song". Trust me to be sat on the same seat as a loony. But then again, it IS very catchy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BRy0MoIA8 - catch it here.

True to the lyrics, we saw ducks and the like, but I was most amused by the big group of pelicans. (You might be interested to know, a plural of this species is a "squadron of pelicans".) Not the pelicans themselves, but the heron that had convinced himself he was also a pelican. It makes a lot of sense - he figured if he hung with the other birds and acted like them, the keepers fed him fish at the same time. There's also a bunch of ducks in the flamingo enclosure - yet none of the keepers can work out how they got in there, as the enclosure is... well. Enclosed. It's netted all round all the sides, the 'goes can't get out and technically nothing can get in. Duck logic.

The lions were pretty much as you'd expect them to be on a rainy day with a sunny patch in the afternoon - the majority of Charlie's gang were all laid in a splash of sunshine slowly drying out. We also found out that a lion's mane gets darker if they're the dominant one but as soon as it's deposed, it gets lighter again. I wonder if rain affects it in any way - is a damp lion darker or lighter? The tigers made me giggle because they sit right over in the far corner of their enclosure, in a perfect position to keep an eye on both their tiger and wolf neighbours.

The monkeys were particularly marvellous - we'd opted to spend a little extra and go in on a bus rather than attempt to take the little Fiesta round. By were we all glad. Some muppet had taken his car in, leaving the big taxi aerial on the roof. The monkeys were de-li-ghted! One sat on the roof the entire way, pulling at it and chewing off the big powerboost pack, and ran away with the ruins. I would have paid to see the owners reaction. So yes. Longleat. Hard to find (but we always get lost if driving more than 30mins so I suppose that doesn't mean much) and very expensive (£70 odd for some season tickets that only let you do each attraction once...) but well worth it for the beasties!

Related Quote for the Day: "GRANDPARENTS: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right." - butlerwebs.com