The Lesser Flamingos of Timbavati Wildlife Park

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post. This weekend brought with it the first day of fall and now trees all over the great State of Wisconsin are turning their brands of orange and brown. That makes this the perfect time to visit our park while we’re open for general admission. General admissions will conclude on October 28th so you still have plenty of time to come see the animals. This week we’re going to zip over to our Waterfalls Area to check in on our lesser flamingos.

The lesser flamingo is one of the smallest flamingos. It stands 2.5-3 feet tall. The lesser also weighs between 3 and 5 pounds on average. When I hang out with the lessers they stand about thigh high. Watching them wade their beaks in the water is a treat also. That’s how they feed on algae, insects and crustaceans.

Lesser Flamingos A Plenty

The population of the lesser flamingo on a global scale is estimated to be around five million birds. Some flocks are even known to contain up to a million. I would say that’s a pretty robust numbers of animals. It also underscores the importance of animals their habitat and the ecosystem in general.

A Flamingo In Time

The first flamingo fossils discovered have dated back to about 10 million years ago. I’d give them a Yabba Dabba Doo for that one if I had been in Bedrock back then. The lesser flamingo reaches sexual maturity at the age of 6 years old. The lesser flamingo can live to be up to 50 years old.

Check out this week’s video for more fun flamingo facts. While I’m at it, don’t forget we’re still open every day. We also have a really super Fall Combo Ticket that gives you an all day general admission and Safari Train Ride. Talk to you all next week!

Ringtail Lemur of Timbavati 2018

Lemurs hail from the Island of Madagascar. That’s in the Indian Ocean off of the coast of Mozambique. If you’ve ever seen the children’s movies “Madagascar,” the character named King Julien was the leader of the troop with the dance moves on the island.

That’s an interesting switch by the makers of the cartoon also. You see the ringtails would have been more likely to have had a queen. They live in a matriarchal society. That means that they are led by the alpha or dominant females in the troop.
Ringtail Squabbles

During mating season, male lemurs will wipe their tails with the scent glands on their arms and then waves them at each other while shooting each other the stink eye. I kind of equate that to watching the cheerleaders dance it out in the movie “You Got Served.”

The ringtail lemur is a great animal to come and check out when you’re in Timbavati Wildlife Park. They are always buzzing around playing and munching on fruits. Remember we’re still open for the season and check out more ringtail facts in this week’s video.

Thank You From Timbavati Wldlife Park To Land's End

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post. This week is a special post.    I would like to give honorable mention to the good people over at Land’s End Clothing Outfitters. This past weekend we were fortunate enough to host their company’s annual employee appreciation event.

That event was really rad and appropriate to come after Labor Day which is a celebration of the American workforce. I think the best part about the event is watching the steady stream of people who are taking some time from their day to day workflows to celebrate camaraderie and teamwork.

Land's End Children and The Moment

The children are always the best parts of these types of events. I can’t tell you how many parents I watched have their cameras and phones as the ready waiting for “The Moment.” You do know what The Moment is don’t you? It’s that moment where a toddler decides to take that leap of faith and stick the carrot in the pygmy goat/giraffe/camel’s mouth.

See the children really do want to feed the animals. They’re afraid to do it and that kicks a wonderful chain of events forward. You see day in and day out we witness parent and child experience The Moment in the park. The coolest part about it is the parent’s demonstrations and encouragement. You see just as in nature when we see our children reluctant to do something, we show them by example. All over the park you have kids dropping carrots 2 feet short of an animals mouth and a mom or dad picking it up and encouraging them to try it again.

The Moment occurs when the parent has finally convinced the child that they would be able to feed the animal without reason to fear. Watching them overcome that is its own reward. This teaches them not to fear animals and to appreciate them. We're grateful for the bonds that we can create with them to have full relationships as citizens of the planet Earth.

A Video Is Worth A Thousand Likes

When all the dust settles and everyone returns to work today we wanted to thank the good people at Land’s End for allowing us to enjoy your families and their moment’s this weekend. Here’s a short video recap of the day’s festivities. Check it out and see if you recognize any of your friends in it and again we thank you.

That’s it for this week my friends, thanks for reading and we will see you in the park!

If you'd like more information on hosting your event with us or click our Plan Your Visit Page

The Aoudad of Timbavati Wildlife Park

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s post! First let me begin by saying welcome to September. The summer season is drawing to a close and while some businesses in our area are shutting their doors for the year, we are still rocking and rolling through the fall! We’re actually open all year long for tours. Ok moving on from the opening volley here, we have a double topic this week. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, I need to type the word “Aoudad” in the first paragraph LOL.

Ok the picture you’re seeing here is our very own herd of aoudad. They are hanging out in an exclusive pasture at Timbavati Wildlife Park. Visitors who ride the Safari Train Ride are treated with our Aoudad Encounter. What exactly is an aoudad you ask? Let’s take a look and see.

The name “aoudad” was given to the Barbary sheep by the Berbers who are a North African people. The sheep as seen in our picture above are great climbers and love the mountains in North Africa. Their horns are made out of keratin just like our fingernails. Every winter the horn gets a new ring on it kind of like a tree does annually.

The aoudad is an herbivore it enjoys grasses, flowers, leaves and shrubs. They live in dry places more often than not. Because of this, they are fully capable of getting all of the water that they need to survive out of the plants that they eat. When they find a water source, they will drink and wallow in it to their heart’s content.

Now let’s shift to the second and I believe even more interesting topic, their pasture! As I stated earlier, the pasture that we have the aoudad in is exclusive to the Safari Train Ride. What I didn’t say was that their pasture used to be a go kart track. That’s right our founder the late Mark Schoebel had a vision for this part of the park when he decided he wanted to pull the track and put a pasture here. The second picture is what it looked like after the asphalt was pulled up but before the underpass was filled.

Mark had a vision of creating an environment that animals like the aoudad could use and climb over so he didn’t have the tunnel demoed and he just re-purposed it as a mini mountain for them. Mark’s projects and his vision for this project needed to be completed. In his absence and with the resolve to move forward, this and many other great projects that Mark was working on were completed by his son Matt Schoebel.

It’s no easy task to pick up your father’s work. You miss that daily, hi how are you or being asked to do something counter to what you had planned. When you think of that loved one or parent you just ask yourself what would they do? They would finish and from the train cars that were being built to this pasture that Matt completed. These labors of love were completed in honor or Mark and with the resolve of his legacy.

The picture that is featured on this blog post is the culmination of one of his final projects. It’s also something that I was very honored to photograph when I was alerted that “ALL” of the aoudad had lined up for a family photo. Our GM Rob came and got me and said “You have to get a shot of this because this was what Mark explained to me he was seeing when he began building this.”

You know what? He was right. I absolutely had to get a shot of this. Now we can all see what he saw when he envisioned it. Thanks for reading and we will see you all in the park!