Abi Clarke: Zookeeper in Training - Week 6: Babies Incoming

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Has Abi Clarke done enough to earn her stripes as Chester Zoo’s newest zookeeper? She’s survived six weeks of rhino poo, crocodile encounters, and relocating flamingos. But the finish line isn’t quite in sight yet.Before she graduates there’s a pregnant sifaka on the brink of giving birth, some freshly hatched chicks that need weighing and it's time to enter the bat cave. Because nothing tests your zookeeper potential like hundreds of flying mammals and the smell of bat wee.See some of Abi’s adventures at Chester Zoo on Instagram and TikTok.Find out more about the incredible work at Chester Zoo, here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is your official warning that this podcast may contain some very mild swearing. Don't worry, I won't be calling an elephant a but if you're expecting a super child friendly podcast, this may not be the show for you. Proceed with caution. Oh no. Sorry, one just fully pulled another bat out of the banana. That was like WWE. I'm Abby Clark. I'm a stand-up comedian and I have somehow made. it to the final week of my zookeeper trainee ship at Chester Zoo. Honestly, when they said I was going to have to pick up poo, I wasn't sure I'd make it past the first week. But here we are. Final week,

I've not been fired. It's a miracle. So what have we learned so far? I've learned that rhino poo is way more complicated than I first thought and doesn't actually smell that bad. Flamingos are the biggest drama queens of the zoo by far, and you can get a sloth to do anything if you come armed with cooked carrot. But the main thing I've learned is just how much passion goes into everything here at Chester Zoo. They're not just caring for the animals here in Chester, but they are saving endangered species around the world. They're reintroducing animals into the wild. They are gathering more research than ever before about some of the most vulnerable creatures and they are making real change to these animals and their ecosystems. And I've been so lucky to play a tiny role in that. But it's not over yet.

Still time for me to mess this up and be sent home with my metaphorical tail between my legs. But yeah, Elliot, unfortunately, he's just the quiet male. But that's the way it works in Leema Society. He is. He's married at first sight, but for that. He's the matchmaker. A lot of people seem to want to, like, rush through. Everyone's very busy all the time. And I think birds are kind of something for people who want to slow down, be in the moment, really.

This is Abby Clark, zookeeper in training. we're hopping back in time now thanks to the magic of podcasting because something is brewing down in the primate team we're about to meet keeper holly who looks after a whole gang of animals including an interesting little lemur called a siphaka which is actually pronounced shifak thankfully i didn't embarrass myself by saying it wrong in front of holly Anyway, these types of lemur are found only in Madagascar. They like to move it, move it, and they've got some really unique little quirks. From their unusual calls to their questionable approach to getting around, but before I accidentally offend an entire species even more, I'll let Holly take over.

So the cockerel shavaks are a type of lemur, so they're one of the largest lemma species, and there's nine subspecies of shafax, and we have the cockerel ones here. So appearance-wise, shefax are about two feet tall when they're standing. They're like a creamy colour all over and they've got these rusty brown patches on their limbs as well. And then a big bright yellow eyes as well. So the chaffax are different to the other, even just lemurs because of the way they move. So they walk or they jump bipedally. So they dance like sort of jump sideways.

They're getting the nickname dancing lemma because of the way they move. and they're like I said they're a lot bigger than other types of lemurs and they're quite a rare species okay I've just googled them although Holly gave a very accurate detailed description

she failed to mention they're adorable they are so cute and like very stylish as well like they're really on the neutral tones a lot of cream with accents of brown this guy looks like he's dancing oh my goodness

this one's doing a foet. Sorry, not all of us did. Ballet in childhood. No, I don't actually know what a foet is, but it sounded right, didn't it? Let me now Google a foetet. A sote? A changemon? Looks like he's doing a changemon.

Currently, we have our breeding pair, so we've got Beatrice and Elliot, who were both 12 years old, who came to us from America, and then we have their offspring, Safina, who was born in September, 23. with lemurs the females are always in charge so beatrice runs the roost here although sophina now that she's getting a bit is stepping up her game a bit and starting to get a little bit sassy but yeah elli

unfortunately he's just the quiet male but that's the way it works in lemma society shefax are pregnant for about five or six months which is similar to other lemurs we actually never see the shefax mating we just notice behaviour so elliot is all over beatrice and then Beatrice gets really annoyed at him and often she'll pull a bit of his hair out and stuff because I think he's a bit keen. So we can just sort of tell from their behaviour when they're sort of in season. And then they don't really put on any weight when they're pregnant either. So yeah, we just kind of go off their behaviour and then we look for signs when she might be close to giving birth. Really, the Shafax tend to just, the mums just tend to care for the babies. Sometimes

you do get the dads might try and hold the baby or take over the parenting. for a little bit, but usually the mum will keep them. It depends on the male really as to whether they're bothered with the baby or not. And then Elliot gets angry and there's a massive tap number. I love Billy Elliott as well. Sorry, all of my knowledge really coming into play now, musicals, dancing. Now I'm speaking my language. This was my personality as a child, which is hilarious to now think if you ever see me dancing in a club. You would be like, that girl has zero dance experience. But let me tell you, I know a pleie. from a jette and a glissard

from a foeter. So with the births, again, we never see it. It's always overnight. We do have cameras installed in the building, although we don't always see it. She often does it when, in an area that we can't see. But yeah, we tend to come in a morning and find it, but when they're born, as soon as they're born, we separate Beatrice and the baby to the rest of the group. And that's the way we have to do it for a good few, we have to leave them separate for a good few weeks. We separate them So the male doesn't try and take hold of the baby, and it means that the baby's fully on mom the whole time. So there's a better chance of it, nursing, putting on weight.

And, yeah, just to give her that time to bond with the baby. Complications-wise, the baby could get stuck during the birth. It could be a stillborn. She could reject the baby. So the first few weeks of the baby's life are critical to make sure that, obviously, it's getting fed, that they're both calm, and that we want to see that the baby's putting on weight. well. So we weigh the baby quite regularly just to make sure that it is getting plenty of milk. So because Shafaks are such delicate creatures and they are very rare, we're the only zoo in the

UK that's got this particular species and there's only two other zoos in Europe that have them. We would intervene if we felt that the baby was at risk and it would be a case of taking it off of Beatrice, supplementary feeding it, maybe warming it up if it wasn't, you know, if it had cooled down or something if she hadn't been looking after it. Touch wood, we haven't had to do that yet. So hopefully it keeps going that way. I think if Beatrice has another baby, it'll be interesting to see how Safina behaves

because she's probably used to being centre of retention. And like I said, she is quite a sassy and dominant female. So it will be interesting to see how the dynamics change, whether she has a nose pushed out of joint or not. We'll have to find out. A baby Shabak is, as you can imagine, tiny. They look so delicate and so vulnerable. But to be honest, they tend to be like kind of quite bright and alert

as long as they're healthy. They're looking around, but they will stay very close and cuddling to mom. Okay, I'm now going to Google a baby Shavak. Oh, my God. It's Golan. Oh, it has like the face of a bat, the hair of a, like, 90s boy band, like frosted tips, and a very bare, grabby arm. It looks like a little Batman. Yeah, that's a gremlin if ever I saw one.

Shafax are class as critically endangered, so any births is absolutely critical to the survival of this species. It's probably one of the most important breeding programs that we have at the zoo. It's important for Chester to have another successful birth because we're trying to establish a breeding program within Europe and the UK. So if we can get the breeding program established here, then that would be a massive achievement. And then hopefully the other collections, there's two other collections in Europe that house them.

If they can get some sort of breeding program established, and then we can hopefully move them to different collections and hopefully build a program a bit like what they've got in America. We'll be back with Keeper Holly in a bit to hear if the baby Shifak makes it through the first difficult stages of life. But now, I have been a very brave girl during this traineeship. I've faced my fears. come face to face with some apex predators.

I didn't even flinch at the blended mouse smoothie. But nothing. I mean nothing could prepare me for this next challenge. We're heading into the scariest corner of the zoo. A place I saw at least three toddlers flee from whilst we were walking over there. And as you'll hear soon, plenty more started crying while we were there. Brace yourself.

We're about to enter the Batcave. I'll be honest, I did turn up to this interview pretty early and I was perhaps overly confident after a day at the zoo. And I did believe I could do this one solo. I did not wait for the crew. I went straight into the cave to give you some on the ground reporting. People don't like a middleman anymore, right? It's the age of social media. You want creator to viewer direct content. And on reflection, maybe we don't. We're in the free flight. Bat area, please walk slowly and quietly. I don't feel like this kid's listening.

I'm going in. I'm going through the flappy plastic flaps. Ooh, there's an odour. Oh my God, they're everywhere. Oh my God, Jesus. One just went by my face. Whoa. One just cut me off.

Okay, I'm going to go. for a tunnel. Oh, there's bats in the tunnel as well. Oh my God. Goodness. One just went right by me. Apparently they fly closer to you in the tunnel.

I don't know if that's what I want. Oh, what are you going to find my face? Oh my God. Do they poop midair? That's what I want to know. Is that a question? We can answer. If anyone could answer my many questions about bats,

it was Keepa Sophie, who you might remember from the time we trained Rico together. It's dark in there, it's hot, it's humid, it's smelly. So just to brace yourself for all of that. Like every ex-boyfriend's bedroom. I'm about to be torn by bats. But don't worry, there's nothing to be scared of. They're fruit bats. So Sophie said that they were fruit bats, but as I did not yet know what that meant, it didn't necessarily reassure my fears at all. but I put on my bravest face and entered the fruit bat forest

for a second time we're with Sophie you are I'm a twilight keeper so I look after the bats as well as lots of other small mammals and I'm a twilight fan and we're told this is very safe it is very safe are you ready well if I ever was

here we go hands nice and cut and just hold them wherever's comfy for you so Sophie has cut down the middle of a banana and kind of opened up its guts let's say to the open air, the scent is in the air, and that she's placed the banana in my cupped hands kind of open side up. And at this point, the fruit bats very much assembled. And after a couple of minutes, we'll start to get bats hopefully landing and taking some banana from you. Wow, okay. So this

is about as crazy as it gets. Okay, this is fine. This is actually fine. One fully just landed. that was actually very cute. They're quite polite. They're like one at a time. I'm getting flapped by wings. Oh, that guy totally missed. And how long does it take for them to demolish a banana? It depends how hungry they are.

So their appetite does fluctuate at different times of the year. Some days a banana literally lasts five minutes. Other days, it can take them sort of half an hour for the group to get through. It really does vary day to day. Okay, this is actually fully adorable. I totally get it. I immediately get it. And that is truly a.

honest Abby Clark review. No fake in it, no polite comment. I loved the bats. It was amazing. So these guys have got quite an interesting feeding technique in that they'll fly down, they'll grab a mouthful and they'll immediately fly back off and basically eat it on the go. They've got a lot of predators. So they'll literally fly down, grab a baffle and fly off again. Oh, one just nibbled me. So we're safe. We're not going to turn into a vampire. These are fruit bats. These are seabush short-tailed fruit bats. These guys are a fruit bat native to Central and South America, all the sort of Latin America area. They live alongside lots of other bat species, so they would just be feeding on all the lovely exotic fruits that grow out in sort of rainforest

areas and occasionally a bit of nectar too as well. And they particularly love the really overripe fruit. So that banana's a little bit starting to turn a bit brown. If it's a bit of, If it's good for banana bread, it's good for a Sibis bat. Oh, I absolutely love it. Banana bread fans. Yeah, they love the really gooey overripe bananas are their absolute favorite. Obviously, it's just got that extra sweetness in it, which is what makes it good for banana bread, but also good for a fruit bat. They're getting more confident.

They're getting more confident. They'll gradually get more and more. Sometimes you can end up having about six or seven bats on one banana all just stuff in their faces. So there's so many, and it's dark. Like, do you ever need to know which bats which? Like, how do you keep track of them? So with our Sebus bats, we've got about 190. So what we do is we actually do a bi-annual bat catch.

So twice a year, we catch them all up. We check them over, give them a full health check. We'll see if any of the females are pregnant. We make sure they've not got any injuries. It's very uncommon. But, you know, we want to make sure that we get eyes on every single bat as often as we can. Given the nature of the bat house here, we do have over 350 bats in here in total because we've got other species as well. It is hard to obviously count and or check every single bat every single day.

So we do this six-monthly bat catch as a way of monitoring our numbers, monitoring the sex ratio of our population, making sure that everybody's fit and healthy and things like that. So how do you catch a bat with difficulty? The Sebus bats aren't too tricky. They've got a little room behind this wall actually. And in the mornings, they're always in that little room. We call it the roost. So we actually just shut the door into that room and then they're sort of in a smallish area and they're quite easy to net. So we've just got little nets and you just spend all day netting bats, netting bats, holding them really gently, like I say, checking them over and things like that.

The Rodriguez fruit bats are a little bit trickier in that they're out here, which is a much bigger space so all we do is we close the bat house for the day to the public we do switch the lights on just to make sure that we can see what we're doing and we've just like the end of a club night they're like we've just got big big nets I didn't know I was kissing them yeah we've just got these massive nets on really long poles and it's just a case of keep trying until you catch them all and how do you know you've got them all when you can see that there aren't any is there no hiding I just like catching my cat for the vet is a oh I know

He, like, one time he disappeared into the wall. So, I mean, obviously, recently, bats have had some bad PR. They have. And idiots like me come in and say, I'm going to turn into a vampire. Do you think it's unfair? Do you think people are thousand percent? Wrongly. We try and use these bat experiences as our sort of chance to educate people

and try and sort of change that view on bats. Obviously, bats are associated with Halloween. and spooky times and scariness and all these things and people come in here and it can be overwhelming when you first come in you know it is dark and there are bats flying around you but as soon as you take a few minutes to stand still and you know particularly if you're doing a bat experience feed the bats you see that actually they're completely harmless there's no reason to be scared of them i always say they're like little teddy bears with wings they're really sweet-natured and vampire bats again they get this awful press they've got a horrible reputation

Yeah. But they're actually one of the sweetest bat species out there. Yes, they do drink blood, but they will quite often just feed on things like livestock. They very, very rarely will bite a person. Oh no. Sorry, one just fully pulled another bat out of the banana. That was like WWE. That was a full drop. Yeah, okay, sorry, carry on. And they're quite often feeding from, you know, large livestock, things like cattle that, you know, a teeny tiny little bat bite for a cow. actually doesn't really, they don't really feel it. They'll have a tiny little drink and then they'll fly off again. The cow is completely fine and obviously the bats just had a tasty snack and then it'll go home. The vampire bats have actually been studied and they're one of

the only species in the world that show true altruism, which is friendship. They'll literally risk their own life to go out and feed to come back and feed, say a poorly bat in their cave that they're just friends with. They're actually really sweet natured and and they're super sociable, they're super friendly, and yeah, they really don't deserve this sort of horrible reputation that they've got. Did you always want to work with bats? Why did you take this job? I won't say I always wanted to work with bats. It wasn't really a species I'd ever really thought about working with. I've worked in a few different zoos now throughout my career. I always knew animals, but I wasn't really sure what. And throughout different collections I've worked at

and I've worked with a number of different species, I realized that I really like the little things, the little creatures, the weird and wonderful ones that probably don't get as much attention from the public as your big megafauna. And yeah, I was excited to work with the bats when I accepted this job, but I didn't think I would love them quite as much as I do. And do they do everything upside down? Sorry if that's a stupid question. They rest upside down. Obviously when they fly, their head is the right way up, but they will funnily enough hang themselves to us the right way up to them it's obviously sort of upside down they'll hang themselves the wrong way up any time they are wanting to do a wee or a poo to make sure that it doesn't dribble down their

body they will hang themselves up the other way round hang by their wings instead of their feet spread the legs and it all comes out they do also defecate and urinate while they're flying which is why we said watch out while you're in here but most of the time if they're resting like this and then they feel the urge to go. They'll flip themselves the other way up, which to us is the right way up. To them, it's the wrong way around. And like I said, they'll sort of hang themselves out to make sure that everything falls to the floor and doesn't dribble all down themselves.

They're very clean animals. So I'm doing a tour of the zoo. I'm training to be multiple types of keeper. What does it take to be a good Twilight Keeper? And why would someone want to be it? Well, for a start, you've got to love the weird and wonderful animals. We are definitely the sort of miscellaneous section of the zoo. you know who stock teams and the carnivore team and you know the sort of more well-known teams

and then we're kind of all the weird and wonderful creatures that don't quite fit into other categories and that fulfill the sort of more niche area habitats out in the wild and things like that you've got to be ready for anything really you know you can come in one day and you could have a huge new litter of mice have been born you know there's always stuff happening always something exciting. It's not like some of the other sections where, you know, an elephant, you're waiting nearly two years for a baby elephant to be born. We probably have something born on twilight every single day, which is always exciting and new and different. Do you know if you're the only zoo that has this like free flying? I think we're definitely, I don't want to say for sure,

but I think we're definitely one of the biggest. We've certainly got the biggest Rodriguez fruit bat population in the UK. Like I said, we've got about 175, 180 it was at our last bat catch. So we've definitely got the biggest population of that species in the UK. And we're really lucky that our team manager, Dave, is actually the stud book holder for that species. So he basically coordinates the entire European stud book. So he's basically Tinder for bats. So he, you know, reviews the populations and will make decisions on which collections should keep Rod Reade's fruit bats and which maybe if they need to introduce some new genetics into their population, he'll sort of suggest maybe you should

move some bats from this zoo to this zoo. He's like maths. Yeah, he is. He's married at first sight, but for bats. He's the matchmaker. Does it benefit them being like free flying and are there any extra risks having it that way? They've obviously got plenty of space which is lovely and it's great for the public to sort of really get that interactive experience. I think people are much more willing to spend time in here and listen to me waffle on about bats because it's so interactive. Whereas perhaps if they're behind glass or you can't actually get as close, people might just walk past and go, oh yeah, it's a bat. Are there any risk to the bat though? Like maybe this is my trust issues, but do you ever get people, I don't know, like how do you occasionally get public

that, you know, they want to, they want to touch the bats or. they want to get really up close but we always have staff in here monitoring we've got a great ranger team who not only do they educate the public but when they're monitoring in here they're actually also on sort of bat welfare duty so they'll make sure that members of the public aren't you know trying to grab bats or anything like that aren't trying to harm them and how do you know if they're like one's sick or injured usually it's all quite behavioral so we tend to find that if a bat does become poorly they'll tend to come lower down on the branches and potentially are a little bit less responsive to a keeper's presence we've got an amazing vet team here at the zoo we've got our own vet center

so there's always vets in every single day of the week we'll take them straight there and our vet team are fabulous they've done all sorts of crazy things with bats over the years you know they've done emergency sea sections they've done there is a child freaking out there us and I'm sorry but it's hilarious. It's not for everyone. That is a child that should not have been brought into the bat house. Can people listening also book to do the same experience? Yeah so our freakback experience is available to anyone over the age of eight. If you head to our website, all the details are on there. It's a great experience. It's our third most popular in the zoo and we've always got really great feedback from it. So yeah, definitely check it out.

You're right. It's like rare to be able to get that up close and personal with an animal at the zoo. Yeah, it's pretty much our sort of closest encounter you can do here at the zoo in that the bats are literally feeding from your hand. Yeah. So yeah, it's a great experience and you get to learn lots about the bats and see them up close in a way that you just don't get to do. I'm as surprised as you are. I loved the bat cave. Low lighting, lots of drama, hundreds of little bats landing in my hands. It was like a very niche spa treatment. Like when people started getting salmon sperm, injected into their faces or those little fish that ate your feet.

But it's time to get serious again, because we are heading back to the Shifak habitat. It's a few months later now, and I need to know, did the baby survive? Holly, please tell us it's good news. So we had noticed signs similar to when Beatrice had Safina, that she may be close to giving birth. And then we came in on a lovely Monday morning, and we found a new addition to our Shafat family. So for the first few days, the baby seems really settled. Beatrice has been a great mom, really attentive. We have actually seen the baby suckling this time, which we haven't before.

So so far, everything is looking really promising. Currently, we don't have any. As a team, we tend to pick them. So what we are doing at the minute is, because it takes a long time to sex them, because they're not the easiest to sex, it's not as obvious as other animals. So what we'll do is come up with a few different names, and then we'll all just take a vote and then the one with the most votes wins.

So I'm hoping mine wins. Mine's Lyra, but I don't think it will win. Aw, that's a cute suggestion. We did a similar thing. Okay, huge news in Abby Clark's life. Really makes the whole becoming a zookeeper thing irrelevant because my landlord finally allowed us to get a cat. And I'm obsessed with him,

but he is a shared cat within a house share. everyone had to agree on the name, very similar technique. We have a whiteboard on our fridge. We wrote multiple name suggestions. It got rubbed off. People didn't like it. It took a while, but we've settled on Stanley, Stanley Smoochie. So we went around for a while. I'd say good two weeks discussing this name. Then we got him, we looked into his eyes and I went, guys, go with me here, Stanley Smoochie. And it was just, it was what just a moment. I assume that's what it's like naming your child. Just this moment suddenly went. yes, that's his name. At the minute, everything is looking really positive for the baby.

Beatrice is doing really well. The mix went really, really well. Elliot and Safina both came over to the baby. It was sniffing her. Beatrice was really calm with them. She let them interact with it. But neither of them were too over the top. I think the baby did climb onto Safina, has climbed to Savina a couple of times and to Elliot, but then Beatrice has got the baby back and carried on feeding it. So all the interactions have been really positive and as we had hoped for. Look, I know what she's talking about. Stanley has also integrated beautifully in the group. He was out the cat carrier, immediate perimeter of the habitat, our kitchen living room. And honestly, within, I'd say five minutes, licking, rolling, purring.

we've had our first lap sit in the last couple of days. Huge, huge news. He does love to get on the kitchen surfaces though. We need to have a look at that. I found him in the kitchen sink the other day. He's doing very well. He's very excited to explore the rest of the house, which we're not going to do till next week. I became a primate keeper. Well, I went to uni first. I went to University of Chester and I did a degree in animal behavior and welfare. And then I did an internship at the zoo after my degree. and I got to know the team and I chose primates just because I was like oh they sound interesting I've never worked with primates before and then that's just the way my career has gone

13 years later I'm still doing it so and I wouldn't change it for the world I absolutely love the primates that are all so different and they've got such great characters and personalities we have quite a big primate section at the zoo so we have our group of chimpanzees

we have two species of orangutan multiple species of lemurs and then we have quite a lot of different monkey species so we've got our bigger monkeys like the mandrels, spider monkeys, rollaway monkeys and lion-tail macaques to our little tiny monkeys, like our pygny marmasettes and our tamarins as well, who are just fantastic. It's a miracle! Chester's out here absolutely smashing it, success after success.

And the good news continues because over on the other side of the zoo, I'm meeting something called a grosbeak starling, small black bird yellow beak and the bird team have some brand new chicks to show me so this is casey what's your official title so i'm the assistant team manager on the parent penguin team amazing and what are we about to do so we're about to go in and check out some of our gross beak starling nest boxes so what we're looking for is any new hatches and any chicks that are big enough that we can put identifying rings on them what's an identifying ring so we've got loads of different types of identifiers on birds, it tends to come in the form of like a bracelet

or a ring on their, on their foot, just above their foot on one of their legs. So that's why we've got to check the nests quite often and make sure we're keeping a close eye on the chicks. We weigh them just to make sure that they're like within the right range of size to be fitted with their new rings. And then what we do is the day after we'll check them again just to make sure that it's still in place, it's not gone up or down or fallen off at all. And a gross speak. Yeah. So the These are Grosbeak starlings. What is a Grosbeet starling? So they're a small perching bird or a passerine.

They are from Southeast Asia. We've got a big colony of them here because they live quite socially in big flocks. There's not a great deal known about their numbers in the wild, especially because they live in colonies. It's really difficult to quantify how many birds there might be living in the wild. But it is believed that they're in decline, like most Southeast Asian species, unfortunately. So really, we've... want to make sure that we've got a really healthy genetically diverse population should they ever

absolutely crash in the wild and need to be reintroduced. Okay, cool. Let's go meet some chicks I guess. Yeah. Is there anything we need to know? They might dive bomb you. Okay. So just apologies if that happens. They really all you'll feel is a bit of a like, a whoosh at the back of your head, but they shouldn't, you know, do anything worse than that. We are intruders, but we're going to try and make it as inoffensive as possible for them. These are the grass beaks. They're beautiful, reddy, orange feathers just around their rumps. Really beautiful, bright yellow.

Big strong beaks. So in the wild, those beaks help them to, like, bore into trees to make cavities that they nest in, which is why they like these boxes because they like, it's a cavity that's completely confined. Are they related to, like, starlings we get in England then? So, like, same, like, family of birds. Yeah. As in starlings, but... Yeah, but they're not running each other Christmas flowers.

No, yeah, they're not. related. And how do you check a nest? So at the moment we've got the nest boxes quite high above us, like wooden bird boxes you'd have in your garden. Where possible, we try and put the nests where we can reach them without needing

ladders and things like that because obviously that's like an extra risk. And do you have to grab a chick and bring it down to you? I'm going to take the whole nest box down. Oh, yeah. So I'll do the first one now. There we go. So you're weighing them to see if they're ready for their ring yet. The reason that we weigh them is because the ideal time

to ring this species. We found it's between, when the chicks are between 19 and like 24 grams. So if they're below that, we won't ring them and we'll try again another day. Okay, so this is box number 16. Oh, I'm sorry. Hello, baby. So it's a metal ring. Yeah.

This one's got a black colour to it. Some of them are just silver, some are red. And it's got code on it and that's completely unique to him. It's like a bird national insurance number. Yeah, pretty much. So we make a record of that, obviously. and that ring hopefully will stay with him for the rest of his life. I always had a poop on me.

Lovely. Thank you for that. Another occupational hazard. Yeah, exactly. Do you think all the species of bird at Chester get overlooked a bit? Yeah, 100%. I think there's a few people that are really into birds. And I think the rest of the majority of people are more interested in the kind of really big, charismatic, like obvious animals like tigers and elephants.

but I think birds require a level of like slowing down and actually taking in the environment around you and really looking and a lot of people seem to want to like rush through not just to do just like in general in life you know we're very busy everyone's very busy all the time and I think birds are kind of something for people who want to slow down and just see what's around you be in the moment really and that is all.

all for my adventures in the zoo. Thank you so much for Chester for inviting me along. Been such a joy to join the team. I mean, I've not heard anything from the team about becoming a full-time keeper. So I think this is the end of my zookeeper career. Oh, hang on. Maybe this is the news I've been waiting for. Or maybe just Fraser got my number and is updating me on the otters. Hi, Abby, it's Fraser. The otters are doing great. Still hoping for breeding. So fingers crossed, let's see what happens. Great, okay, what else? And it's time to find out if you've passed. So I spoke to the other keepers and they've given me their feedback.

Oh no. Your shrimps are, you really wanted to know every little detail about all the animals, even if some of the questions were a bit weird. And I assume they don't get a stitch. What does sloths do? How did you become King of the Otters? It's like Gorilla Lemtip? You got really stuck in with feeding all of the animals, even when it involved fish heads.

I did, and they had a lot of splashback. I did very well feeding fish in a cream t-shirt, also I'll add. I kept that thing clean. And you faced all of your fears from meeting the bats in the dark to conquering your fear of wasps. Oh my God, there's a wasp. No one warned me about wasps. I don't think I conquered that one, to be fair. I is still live and thriving.

Summer is going to be long for me. Yeah, but it is all sounding very positive so far. But there is some things to improve on. Your throwing technique could do with a little bit more technique. Yeah, I'm actually throwing it in the bush on purpose, and this is enrichment. Yep, she's not going to let a good grate go to waste. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. And the Komolo dragons don't usually save their intestines on the door for later.

Usually, but maybe it's a new technique. We think you could do with a little bit more experience with everything that involves being a keeper, not just all the keep bits. Okay, but more experience sounds like you'll have me back. But after looking at all your feedback, I can tell you that you've passed your traineeship, and we would love to make you an honorary keeper. Don't love the use of the word honorary. I was going for ultimate, but okay, thank you, Fraser.

You are welcome back here at Chester Zoo anytime. Oh my God! So, my adventures in the zoo have come to an end for now, but never say never. Honestly, I thought this would just be a fun little side quest, but it's ended up being one of the wildest, weirdest, most brilliant things I've done. I've truly found my calling. A massive thank you to the incredible team at Chester Zoo, the keepers, vets, and of course, the animals,

who let me into their world for six weeks of madness. If you want to see some of the highlights from the last few weeks, we're on Instagram and TikTok at trainee Zookeeper. But for now, I've been Abby Clark, and this has been Zookeeper in Training. Thank you for listening. Thank you.