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The River Douro. |
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One of the gates we saw on our walk. |
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A Peahen and her young, were walking along the paths and in the gardens. |
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The real McCoy.... |
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The White Rhinoceros. Their name means (Nose horn) |
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The White Rhinoceros have two horns, the foremost being more prominente than the other. |
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The Muscovy Duck seen in the zoo pond. |
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We have always had Muscovy ducks on the farm,... |
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The male hisses at intruders, but wag it's tails when spoken to!!:) |
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It took us I hour and 30 minutes on the highway to reach the Zoo, and this is the entrance. |
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I sat on the bench, whilst Americo went inside.... |
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this building, where he bought our entrance tickets, and on the right is where we started our walk around the zoo. |
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One of the hides where we were able to see the deer-like creatures below. |
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On a return visit, I'll be more careful to get their names, as I stupidly forgot to take pictures of them. |
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This creature and the next where taken in different areas of the zoo. |
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The environment looked very natural, |
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Another view of a hide to get a better look at the fence. |
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This is where we had a delicious cooked meal. We had intended to spend the day, but it was so hot, that we left after eating lunch, but we both agreed to make a return visit at a later date, and I shall look forward to it, besides,.. I want to get those names. |
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The Black Swan Cygnus atratus |
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Sweet lonely Donkey. |
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The Greylag Goose. |
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The Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax feed at night, mostly on fish and crustaceans squid, water insects and frogs in the water, and on land they will eat birds eggs, earth worms, insects, toads, lizards snakes and rodents, which is quite a varied diet. |
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The sexes are similar in appearance, although the male is slightly larger. |
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Their resting posture is somewhat hunched, but when hunting they extend their necks and look more like other wading birds. |
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A closer look at this red eyed, tri-coloured bird, which I think is most attractive with it's long white head plumes. |
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The Asian Hornet |
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The Asian hornet is an invasive species which slaughter about 50 bees a day to feed their larvae... |
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They pose a tremendous threat to honey bees and other pollinators. |
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It is slightly smaller than the European hornet, but it makes a very loud buzzing noise which drew my attention to it in the first place. |
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They hover near the honey bees hive and pluck them out of the air on their return to their hive. They first remove the wings and legs, then roll them up into ball, which they then carry to their own nest to feed their larvae. |
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The Asian hornet is a day-flying species, which unlike the European hornet, ceases activity at dusk. |
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Mostly dark brown in appearance with the wide orange band on the forth segment, and yellow legs. |
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The nest is suspended, spherical or oval in shape, and can be as large as 1 metre in height, and 80 cm in diameter, I would say that the one in the shed was 60cm x 60cm. |
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It is built by making paper mâché made from chewed tree and plant material, and when finished the hive population reaches about 6,000 insects. It was situated near enough to our foreman's house to cause him concern. |
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Unlike the European hornet, where the entrance to the nest is at the bottom of the nest, the entrances are at the sides, I tried to get closer shots of the entrance, but as the hornets were in constant movement they came out all blurry. |
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A couple of photos of sections of the nest. |
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