Creepy Creatures of All Sorts

Halloween I went down to The National Gallery to watch the Samhuinn Fire Festival.  Samhuinn is supposed to represent the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter and is held on the 31st of October which is roughly halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

The Beltane Fire Society puts on a show every year.  It starts with a march, followed by a stage performance.  The stage performance involved a fight between the summer king and the future winter prince.  There are tons of performers dressed as all sorts of creatures and beings.

Wolfman? Part of the winter campaign 

Winter Fighting Summer

View of the roof of Waverly Station on the walk home

And this week we had our exotics handling class.  I had been both looking forward to this and dreading this.  Half of the handling involved mammals and half involved birds and reptiles.  My group started with the reptiles.  First was a tortoise.  No problem.  Hold it like a hamburger.  I can do that.  Next was the bearded dragon.  All right.  Not as easy as the tortoise, but this bearded dragon only had three legs so he wasn't moving too fast.  Third was the gecko.  Now geckos do this weird thing called autotomy when they get stressed.  Basically as an escape mechanism they will shed their tail in the hopes that the predator will go for the tail instead of them.  While I was holding the gecko, which was looking less and less pleased as he had just been passed around to 10 other people, all I could think was "Please don't lose your tail, please don't lose your tail!"  Fortunately there was no tail shedding.

Next animal... snake.  Now for anyone who knows me well,  you will know that I HATE snakes and I am terrified of snakes.  Animals should not be one giant spine.  They should have legs.  But I appreciate some people like snakes and I understand I need to lean to care for them (although I know there is not a chance I will ever treat snakes in my future).  As the 3.5 foot ball python was passed around, the pit in my stomach kept growing.  And then it was my turn.  I took the snake in my hands and its head turned toward me.  He gave me this look like "You have no idea what you are doing do you?"  And with that look I passed him on to the next person as fast as I could.  So now I know I can hold a snake if I have to, but I sure do hope that when my handling exam comes around I don't get examined on the snake.

The last animal in the first half was a pigeon.  We were taught a one handed hold that locks it legs and wings together so it can't fly away.  (I did have a momentary fear where I would be the one student who lets go of the pigeon and it flies away).  You can examine the pigeon with your free hand.  Or if you are like all of us animal deprived vet students, pet it while it stares up at you in confusion.  I actually quite enjoyed the pigeon.

The second half of the handling was much more enjoyable.  We handled, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits.  Much better creatures in my opinion.  Although the rats we were handling were albino (white with red eyes) which were a little creepy.

So from exotics handling I confirmed my suspicions that I am not a reptile person.  But when push comes to shove (aka handling exams in April) I will be able to handle them.