Wingham Wildlife Park

Ruth and I went to visit the Wingham Wildlife Park last week. I always have mixed feelings about seeing the animals in wildlife parks, on the one hand I really enjoy seeing them but on the hand I wish they were not in captivity. There were also a lot of birds like the ducks with their ducklings that were just free to come and go.

Here in the Wingham Wildlife Park the enclosures were all pretty good. They are investing in upgrading all the facilities for people and animals since they took over the site.

Website here

I liked the fact that their two lions were rescued from a French circus and that they are involved in other conservation projects.

There is a little bit of everthing in the park including animals like lions, tigers and meerkats, owls and birds of prey a tropical house, otter enclosure, penguins pool and peacocks wandering the site along with exotic chickens.

I found quite a few feathers on the paths walking around, lovely huge goose feathers I think, an owl feather and some from the tropical birds and others I can't identify.

The peacocks seemed to enjoy showing off their beautiful feathers when not chasing the chickens from potential food.

You could buy food for the meerkats, which we did and you can look over their enclosure and drop the food in. I liked that you could get quite close to some of the animals with warnings of course about putting fingers near them.

They have various experience days including one where you can help feed the tigers or be in with the lemurs and photography sessions too.

Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals.

I got to see Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads, his new sculptural installation at Somerset House, last week.
It is an installation of 12 bronze sculptures of animal heads, the animals being the traditional animals of the Chinese Zodiac including, dragon, horse, monkey and rabbit. Ai Weiwei based his sculptures on traditional Chinese designs and they are quite striking in the courtyard of Somerset House.


It is a political shame that Ai Weiwei has been arrested and is in custody in China now, for apparent tax evasion. He has been an outspoken critic of China's regime for many years, it is testimony to the power of the arts I suppose that artists like Ai Weiwei are targeted by their country in an attempt to silence their views.
I hope international pressure is brought to bear more and more strongly on the Chinese for the release of Ai Weiwei.



The regular fountains are on again for the summer, with their sequence of rising and falling jets, I couldn't quite make up my mind whether they enhanced or detracted from the installation. I did enjoy taking a few photos of them through the water though.