Crocodiles

hey everyone

well, with his love of dinosaurs and snakes in general, there was always a good chance that James would take something of a shine to the site of crocodiles too. whilst on holiday, then, we took a trip down to the crocodile park (farm? zoo? reserve?) to see how he would get on with them. as it turns out, he got on just fine with them! well, as fine as we would let him, really. i think James would have loved to get in and touch them, but we didn't think that would be a particularly good idea.





James was rather taken with how the crocodiles behaved. he seemed particularly impressed with the way that they swam around, and then climbed up on top of the nearest crocodile to have a nice snooze when they were done with that.





that said, i don't think that the crocodiles did as much running about as James would have liked. they certainly did not sing any of the songs that he hoped they would, but in time we shall explain that the animals in the real world seldom, if ever, behave quite the same way as they do in those magnificent Disney films.





now, say hello to Footloose, the second biggest nile crocodile in captivity. he's rather big as you can see, and would appear to have his name as, in the immortal words of Peter Cook, he seems to have "one leg too few". missing leg not pictured, by the way!!





many thanks to the "regular" sized crocodiles for hanging around to show just how big Footloose happens to be!!

now then, the biggest nile crocodile in captivity is a right charmer called Arnie. the chap who told us all about him seemed to have a rather healthy level of fear and respect for Arnie, which is something i would suggest one show in equal measure when facing him!





and here's a regular, name free crocodile that Michele took a fantastic picture of. if it were an alligator, i would have course taken him home and named him Elvis.





and, speaking of taking them home, i dare say it occurred to James to ponder the idea of taking one of the many (and i do mean many) baby crocodiles that were there!

here's just one picture of the babies hanging around. trust me, i have dozens more and you never see the same baby croc twice!!





as much as James would most likely love having a baby crocodile at home, i somehow doubt that our bath would be able to contain it for much more than a couple of weeks (a month at best), and i dare say that it and the cats would not get on at all well!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!