This weekend Aidan was away on his first Scout camp, so as a treat for Megan we went to the Zoo. It was very cold, but we had a really good day with excellent views of nearly all the animals.

A highlight was bumping into Kato the giant hornbill’s training session – we got our own private show and a fascinating insight into how to outwit a very smart bird!

The pandas performed for us too, despite being warned they were asleep. Turns out between them they eat 70kg of bamboo a day, grown by a furniture company in Holland.

The pygmy hippos had a baby – a pygmy pygmy!

I loved the Visayan warty pigs – their pen was heaven for pigs, and the dozen or so gold-striped piglets were very cute. I watched one get a big fright when the twig it was playing with flicked up – it shot across the field at top speed back to mummy!

Not to forget penguins, tigers, rhinos, science in the monkey research facility, near relatives in the chimp house, crested pigeons, zebras, sunbears, wallabies, koalas, meerkats, and more and more!