. . . on animal magic
A TUFTY-HEADED HERON, minding his own business, wanders past the penguin enclosure. My friend can’t help himself: “Look at the hair on that.” One of my funniest friends has a series of jokes he crafted specifically for his regular strolls around Dublin Zoo. My friend, let’s call him Monkey, was given an annual pass so he’s threatening to do this kind of material all year. He’s visited the zoo three times since Christmas. Can’t get enough of the place. His wife, let’s call her Zooey, has heard them all before but still, and I reckon this is a serious indication of marital commitment, manages to smile every single time.
Recently we had our first jaunt around the zoo with him and, while as a family we love the zoo almost as much as we love ice cream or jumping in muddy puddles, his commentary enhanced the experience no end. It’s seems strange, but growing up in Dublin, the zoo was a once or twice a year thing, definitely A Big Occasion. When I asked my mother why, she said “because it was miles away, two bus trips, and it wasn’t cheap”. This was the era before a family pass could buy you unlimited trips each year. A time before we knew the animals by name and saw them give birth on RTÉ television programmes.
I mean, it’s mad, but we went to baby gorilla Kituba’s first birthday party the other week. There were banana muffins and a giant banana walking around dispensing handshakes. “Ki-Tuuu-ba!” my children shouted across the gorilla rainforest as his mum,
Lena, gave him a birthday hug.
That’s the kind of zoo they are learning to love.
Passing the leopards, Monkey says to nobody in particular: “I’m pretty sure their spots were different last time.”
My zoo memories are less sparkly than my children’s already magical ones; slightly darker it has to be said. When I think of the zoo of my childhood I always remember the yellowing coats of the polar bears. They looked so sad, standing by the rocks, staring into space, I always thought they were wondering where all the snow had gone. But Monkey, who seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of animal behaviour as well as Olympic-standard punning ability, reckons they were just being themselves. He says in the wild they are well-known for staring as they wait for prey to appear.
“It’s just what they do, that’s their way,” he tells us.
“Ah, you can’t leave that lion there,” he offers as we walk past the big cat section.
The trick about going to Dublin Zoo is to get there at precisely 9.30am, just as the red metal barrier in front of the ticket desk moves slowly across to signal the fact that the place is now open. Some of you know this already. Some of you have already experienced the joy of walking around your own private zoo with an unimpeded view of orang-utans, tigers and horned oryx. The cute red pandas in the trees are being fed, and nobody else is there to see their interaction with the keeper except you.
We are watching the zebras, the giraffes and the rhinos, great motionless mounds of grey which look as though they might have been carved from stone.
“The male is called Neil,” Monkey says before hitting us with the punchline: “So all the females can say they spent the night with Rhino Neil.”
The cafe is just opening. I’ve brought a flask of coffee. Zooey orders a bag of chips and because the fryer is still heating up and because it takes a while to cook them, she is given an extra scoop and we all fall on them like, well, animals. It’s 9.45am but it feels like the right kind of snack walking around the zoo on a bright, crisp morning. There’s still nobody else here. Seriously, it’s my top tip, get there at 9.30am. On the dot.
We are standing and admiring some birds of prey. “Look at you! You’re like vultures,” he tells them.
I’ve had a lifetime of animal ambivalence but being around small children changes all that. We went to Fota Wildlife Park in Cork a few weeks ago. It’s 70 acres of a full-on, full-throttle wildlife experience where the fences are dispensed with in many cases. A ring-tailed lemur jumped over one daughter’s head, the other daughter had an in-depth chat with a kangaroo that hopped across her path. There are geese wandering around that can fly higher than any other creature on earth, higher even than Everest.
These are the kind of useful facts you pick up if you hang around these places enough.
And now the tiger is loping down the hill providing us with a perfect view of his magnificence.
So he says, and personally I think this is his finest hour: “That reminds me, I need petrol”.
I really hope this is going to be a regular thing.
In other news . . .
The small but perfectly formed Five Lamps Arts Festival is happening for the fifth year on Dublin’s Northside until April 26th. A packed programme includes Ergophobia [fear of work], a new comedy from Grumble Theatre about two outcasts from post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Seán O’Casey Theatre, East Wall, Monday. 8pm. fivelampsarts.ie