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Your Questions
Can the peacocks go wherever they want in the zoo? Yes! They are free to wander the zoo, but tend to be found where the animals and public leave crumbs! We currently have 15 peacocks and peahens and you will often see the males displaying their long tail feathers. Our white peacock has been known to display at members of the public if they are wearing white and on one occasion he displayed at a lady with a white umbrella! They roost up in the trees at night, and it can be quite an effort to fly with all those tail feathers! What is the tall, ugly looking bird with a bald head? The keepers do not think he is ugly! But I guess he is not the prettiest bird either. This is the Marabou stork. He stands 6 foot tall with a wingspan of 9 foot and he is quite a character. He comes from Africa, and just like vultures he feeds on carrion, so in order to keep his head clean whilst feeding, he has no feathers on the top of his head, just skin. He has a very long sharp beak, so the keepers have to be very careful when they go into feed him! You may notice him clapping his beak at you as you walk past his paddock, as with all storks they are not very vocal so his bill rattling is how he says hello! Why do you rear most of the baby birds in the duckery? We leave some of the baby birds to be parent reared out on the park, but sometimes the young do not survive. This is due to; neglection by the parents, competition from other animals in the exhibit and natural predators such as crows and stoats. Therefore if we are concerned, we rear the babies in the duckery instead and when they are fully grown they go back out into the park or are relocated to other zoos as part of our breeding programmes.
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