Marc's Hijack

Muwhaha.... It is Marc... I have hijacked the blog.  I am finally getting around to posting some images from Chester Zoo.  These are a few of the images I can legally post, most of my images are of veterinary care in action... and I cannot post those.

More to come later... muwhahahaha

Marc's officially finished!

I am super happy to share that Marc has officially passed all of his exams, and is done with vet school! Very proud of him!!!

New toys

We recently inherited a new cat tower from a newly graduating vet student moving on to do amazing things with her career.  It took seconds for our cats to adopt it as their own.

Seal Training Course

At the moment most of my energy is focused on finishing up my thesis (and hence the very few blog posts).  But my heart is also very invested in a animal training course (to be fancy, it is officially called "Practical application of animal training in research studies").  We set up a collaboration between the St. Andrews Aquarium and the university to get students involved with a start up training program.  Last spring we had 19 university students come and learn to train the 4 seals at the aquarium.  The students are allowing me to do more with my research, and one of them was inspired enough to set up another research project that will get started later this week.  It's worked out so well, and we are re-running the course over the summer with new eager students, and expanding to start training the humbolt penguins at the aquarium as well. 

Weekend away in Chester

Marc is currently doing a two week vet placement with the Chester Zoo, and I took this lovely sunny weekend to visit him.  We wandered around downtown and around the Chester Cathedral, but spent most of our time at the zoo and blue planet aquarium.  Chester Zoo is by far the best zoo I have seen in the UK, and one of the best in the world. The exhibits are large, state of the art, the animals well cared for, and the visitors very well catered for.

Malta

 For easter weekend, Marc and I found cheap Ryanair tickets to Malta.  A wonderful quick trip to enjoy some sun and scenary!  It was perfect timing; Malta is very Roman Catholic, and so there was lots going on in celebration of easter. We missed out on the serious religous worship of good friday, but were there on Sunday for all the fun of chocolate treats and people running around in the streets.  We explored some of the bigger towns, Valleta and Mdine (also know as the silent city due to the massive walls every where, you can see the fortress above from the country side).  The architecture is really spectacular, heavily arabic influenced and the tans are really set off by the blue skies and green flora.  We also stayed right on the water, conveniently located next to their small aquarium.  A very nice mini vacation!!!

Edinburgh Zoo Sea Eagles

I was enjoying a visit at the zoo today, checking out a potential post phd research site, when I came across the sea eagle enclosure.  This charismatic fellow was waiting right up against the glass, and was very engaged with all the human visitors.  He made direct eye contact, and seemed very comfortable.  It is also special as sea eagles are extinct in Scotland, but they are undergoing efforts to breed in captivity and re-establish wild populations.