Zuri & Safi - 28/29th January 2013.

Right!

My apologies for the delay since my last post but I have been rather busy and unable to visit many collections, however all for good reasons! Having signed all paperwork I am now officially a trainee zookeeper at Linton Zoo in Cambridgeshire, and i'm sure all of you regular readers of the blog will know that this is where Zuri, Safi and her parents Riziki and Karla are resident at.

So not only have I got a zookeeping job at the age of eighteen but I am able to see these lions every single working day, which is ofcourse all that I have wanted since the age of three! So here is a start of much more regular picture posting of the lions in my lunchbreaks and after the zoo has closed. I hope you all enjoy!

The above photos were taken on the 28th January, Safi was obviously in season and regular mating occurred and could be heard throughout the Zoo! Zuri was testing his extreme annoyance capabilities and as any male would, he would not leave his female alone during this period of her coming into season and used every single opportunity he could! 

Once again this did annoy Safi a fair bit, and Zuri was definately prone to and (used to as it looked like) quite a few swipes to his head from a very angry Safina! This does no damage to them at all, as they are incredibly hardy animals, some lions have even been known to heal from fractured legs and so on. So a swipe or two to the nose is really no trouble at all.

The pictures below were taken the day after on the 29th January. It wasn't as dark as it looked however having to use the flash makes it seem a lot darker. However looking at these photos it definately gives us an opportunity to look at some of the fantastic colours within Zuri's mane. You can really see here how much darker it is at the edges now, and doesn't he look so superb?!

And here we are my final photo of the day showing Zuri and Safi coming over to see me to say hello. I am incredibly lucky to have a bond with these lions, and it has taken six years for me to do so. I am also incredibly lucky to see them every day of my working life and I will continue to record their lives through this blog and also my own lion diaries at home. 

I hope that you will all enjoy  looking at these pictures and the ones that that will come up in the future. My phone will also come into use as I can transfer pictures from it onto the blog.

This is where the blog really starts now, giving up to date information on these lions on daily posting for you all.

Cheers.

James.