QuikPic: Cassandra

Here is a great picture of Cassandra I took in the mid-afternoon recently. It was in the high 70’s and mostly cloudy, but as soon as the clouds parted,  she took full advantage of a great sun bathing spot!Read more

Spider Identification

One of my favorite aspects of working in Explore the Wild is the wildlife, whether it be foxes, ground hogs, raccoons, snakes or spiders. I found this spider recently and was quite sure it was a crab spider so I checked with Leon from the Butterfly house, who is an expert. He said it was a Running Crab Spider, they are in the Thomisidae family. They can actually be green, orange, and yellow in color, he also mentioned that theyRead more

Foxes

To piggyback on a recent Ranger Greg post I thought I’d share a few recent pictures I’ve taken of wild foxes on grounds.    Read more

Zookeeper Appreciation Week

  Thanks to Sherry, Aaron, Katy, Kent, Marilyn, Jill, Sarah and Jessi for all your hard work and dedication. Zookeepers have an amazingly rewarding job that can also be physically demanding and once a year we all deserve a little pat on the back!Read more

Raptor Center Road Trip & a Quiz!

Kimberly and I recently took a road trip out to the Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville, NC to pick up our two new owls. The trip out was uneventful (unlike the ride home) and we got to walk around the facility before crating up our birds for the van ride home.  Here are photos of few of the residents at the Raptor Center. How many raptors can you ID?Read more

Grape Bonding

  Last week grapes were on sale,  it’s summer, very hot, and Aaron has a credit card.   Aaron bought well over 100 pounds of grapes. We freeze them and use them as frozen treats for the animals. This batch should last us over 3 months. It takes quite a bit of time to pull grapes off them stems. I only slightly jest that I have never seen the keepers work so well together!  What a bonus. I wonder howRead more