Drusillas Park

Obviously for us, the best sort of family day out is one where my kid can run around having fun or going on rides, and I can be involved in all that but also get to take some interesting pictures as well.

Now, if you’ve read any of my wildlife posts before you will know that I am no good at identifying species. Of course, in this day and age I’m sure I could just upload a copy of the photo and have an AI tell me, with either disconcerting accuracy or hilariously confident inaccuracy, exactly what I’m looking at. But I take great pride in being hilariously inaccurate on my own. Yet another thing AI is trying to suck the fun out of.

At this point I assume you’re telling me to get on with it. Or just skipping all the text to look at the pictures, which is fair enough I guess. Or possibly your face looks like whatever this thing is.

It’s possible that this expression might trip up an AI. Here it is posing a little more gracefully.

Shooting here often had some of the same pitfalls as taking photos in an aquarium. Most of the photos in this post were shot through glass or some sort of fence, and for some of the smaller critters, they were also in dimly-lit indoor pens. Luckily I didn’t also have the presence of water to deal with.

Anyway, back to the animals. No idea what this guy is, and I’m happy to be informed in the comments for everyone else’s benefit. Not all of the creatures were so obscure, of course. That said, it does help that I grew up with some tortoises in my garden.

Here’s another one of those first critters again. This one looks a bit less impressed.

Luckily as I was writing this my wife looked over and asked what it was, so I am at least a little bit reassured that it’s not that well-known a creature.

Next up were these things. Monkeys of some sort, perhaps, or at least loosely related to them.

There was a few of them in their accommodation.

They also came out for their dinner from time to time.

And there was this guy, who was kind enough to look at me for his photo.

Here is another one. Or possibly the same one.

This next creature I should be able to identify, because it is of the same species as the animal that made the news for taking a selfie with a camera and getting entangled in a copyright dispute with the person who owned the camera. In this next photo – which is not as good as the one taken by the monkey, admittedly – you can see the expressive face that made the aforementioned selfie so captivating.

One of his brethren was in another pen, looking pensive.

Elsewhere, this fella seemed a bit unsure of me.

Although to be fair he seemed to a bit surprised by everything. I loved his hair – it reminds me of Doc from Back to the Future.

These guys had lovely eyes, which always captivates me.

The park isn’t just full of land dwellers – they have a decent number of birds as well. The first one that caught my eye was this brilliantly red long-beaked fella.

My wife tells me this is a scarlet ibis. Bit odd to name a bird after a hotel chain if you ask me.

There were also these beautiful, big-faced owls (I think that’s the technical name).

Now even I know what these next birds are. Flamingos!

They had quite a few of them.

Then there were these guys, who I think are love birds (I appreciate I can at least look that up to check that I’m right).

The last animal we saw was this red panda, having a nap up in a tree.

We’ve been back to Drusillas a couple of times since this visit, but with a slightly older child we were more distracted by the rides and there were less photos.

And if you the names of the animals in this post – by which I mean the species name, not if they’re called Steve or whatever – then please do stick it in the comments.