In which a culture vulture meets a vulture

Vulture – non-culture variety.

Amsterdam has a reputation – quite a reputation, come to that. With its red light district and its grey cafés, it is, in the minds of some, the very model of a modern Sodom and Gomorrah; to others, a pleasure palace.

It has been said that those two aspects of the city are impossible to escape from, even in a limited visit: but that is either a rather wild exaggeration or a somewhat Freudian interpretation, depending on your own analysis.

Now, in the interests of clarity: I have never spent time in one of the grey cafés, but I have smoked the odd joint and have no problem with that aspect of Amsterdam. Equally, I’ve spent time – on my own – in the red light district too, and the only thing that nearly freaked me out was the sight of two of Mother Teresa’s nuns heading in my direction.

So this is not some sort of puritanical, crusading piece against that part of the city’s existence. In the posts about this part of my spring break, there will simply be an attempt to rectify that myth and broaden horizons.

If it is simplistic to describe Lübeck as “terrifyingly cultured”, then it’s equally simplistic to portray Amsterdam in a way that forgets hugely significant aspects of its culture.

In keeping with the first leg of this trip, there was to be no shortage of delights for a culture vulture abroad. I had pre-booked tickets for the Rijksmuseum, which was due to reopen after a 10-year restoration/refurbishment just a few days before my arrival, and also for an evening at the Concertgebouw, the city's magnificent concert hall. And more of those in following posts.

But Wednesday dawned bright and mild, and we decided to head to Artis, the city’s zoo.

Short for Natura Artis Magistra (itself, Latin for ‘Nature is the teacher of art’), Artis was founded in 1838.

Kookaburra

The main entrance bears the name above it, but ‘Artis’ was the word above the central gate. It was the one that was most often open, and thus people looked up and saw this one word – and the zoo became known by that word.

In addition to the zoo itself, the site also houses a planetarium, zoological and geological museums and an aquarium, plus a substantial library – all of which declares it’s educative qualifications.

We’d never visited before and the size of it proved a surprise – for some reason – presumably the general size of a grachtenhuis in the Centrum – I’d expected it to be small and not much more than a children’s petting zoo.

It’s light years from that.

We started at one of the old buildings, just near the planetarium, where there were birds outside and inside, some monkeys.

Having wandered along the outer enclosures, we headed in. I hadn’t spotted the signs saying that there were loose animals beyond the doors, so it was an even bigger surprise to walk into a tropical forest and find a large, blue bird wandering around.

The surprises were only about to begin, though, as a monkey swung past nearby and we spotted three little, apparently rodent-like creatures chasing past thought the plants.

Guinea fowl. 'Are you lookin' at me?'

I have never seen such small monkeys – and being able to see them so near, without glass or Perspex or wire between you is utterly astonishing. Judging by the smile on the face of one of the keepers, having clocked my own grin, such a response is frequent.

As we moved through the different parts of this house, we came across a group of guinea fowl toddling around. One, though, was determined that anyone who came near must, by dint of bird-brained logic, be in possession of food.

'Is that camera food? I bet that camera's food really,' it seemed to be demanding as it headed straight for me.

It was four years ago, in Berlin, that I really ‘discovered’ zoos as an adult – not least for the purposes of photography.

Chimp and baby.

There, the specific revelations had included vultures, which I had never imagined I would find remotely interesting, but, having made eye contact with a king vulture, I now find them awesome, and was delighted that Amsterdam had a number of European Griffon vultures.

In fact, on that trip, I’d found myself far more interested in several of the birds than I had expected – and here things started well with a delightful pair of kookaburras.

The meerkats, as always, delighted, with chances to observe (and snap) their lookout behaviour.

Half a dozen small turtles proved excellent models for a couple of pictures, as did a camel that looked at me with the sort of expression that could have come straight from one of the grey cafés.

But on this trip, special pleasures awaited in the form of baby animals.

First, there were a pair of baby maras curled up together outside a little burrow, with a trio of older ones watching on carefully. They had been born only the weekend previously, but are so developed that they can sometimes graze within a day of birth.

Then, in the gorilla enclosure, a magnificent silverback was leading his troupe in a charge around as they waited to go inside for dinner: we spotted at least three babies on their mothers’ backs.

But perhaps the most glorious of these treats came watching a chimpanzee sitting on a large trunk, poking a stick into a hole in search of insects, and all the time holding her sleeping baby in her other arm. He or she had such an old little face.

The question from a photographic perspective became not simply getting the shot, but trying to avoid the flare on the windows of the enclosure. Some shots were better than others – and Photoshop can then help further.

It’s one thing to see such sights on the television: it’s entirely another to see them in the flesh.

Zoos are still a contentious idea for some people, but good ones – like this and Berlin – have enormously important roles to play in terms of conservation and education.

Turtles

In terms of the latter: yes, you can see so much on television – and in the UK, we’ve been blessed to have David Attenborough and the BBC wildlife unit at Bristol educating us for many years.

But I offer my own changed view on vultures as an example of the difference that seeing in the flesh can make.

And indeed, a couple of years after that, we spotted and were able to identify a Lammergeier over Foix in the French Pyrenees.

And here, we watched as two vultures tore apart a dead rabbit, with a much larger carcass close by.

For all the cuteness, nature is truly red in tooth and claw.

There were, of course, plenty of herons around – you can't avoid them in Amsterdam, and they're wonderful to see. And flowers in full colour offered a pleasure that perhaps might be less so in other when, by this time of year, we'd have seen plenty.

Sculpture of a young chimp.

But one other thing I really liked about Artis were the sculptures that can be seen throughout the grounds.

There are some that clearly date back many years, but others that are far more modern.

That evening, we headed for Kop van Jut, one of a trio of eateries in the touristy food streets around the Leidseplein, that actually serve Dutch food.

Oh, you can find Argentinian and Uruguayan steaks aplenty, and there is no shortage of those thin frites and burgers and dogs, plus a few Indonesian restaurants – the culinary legacy of the Netherlands’ imperial history – but little in that area that provides Dutch cooking.

Most people would probably struggle to think of a Dutch dish, but in keeping with the sort of culinary links that I mentioned in terms of lobskaus, there are plenty here too.

For instance, Erwtensoep is simply a version of pea and ham soup – the Germans have one too (erbsensuppe), while the Scandinavians have artsoppa, a pea soup.

Stamppot is a dish made with mashed potato, which is added to vegetables and sometimes also bacon: colcannon or bubble and squeak, anyone?

Anyway, we’d dined at Jut van Kop some years ago and thought it well worth a return.

I ordered cod with spinach, beans and a sort of pesto dressing: fairly typical Northern European ingredients, with a rather more southern twist thrown in, and all done rather well.

And it came with a large serving of handcut chips – with homemade mayo on the side.

That’s a filthy little habit that I picked up in Amsterdam years ago and is now my go-to condiment for chips.

The Other Half had two small (but not that small) soles.

And, for dessert, ice cream.

The menu was far shorter than we remembered, but that's no bad thing. The staff were almost taking youthfulness to the point of frightening. And it had never really struck me as the sort of establishment that would ask you to 'like' on Facebook (although I have done that). It's a changing world.

It had been a very enjoyable day – and I offer it up as early evidence in my case that Amsterdam is not simply Sodom and Gomorrah: unless you want it to be, of course.

* A full set of Artis photographs can be viewed here.

* The Berlin Zoo photographs can be viewed here.

Who's idea was muzak with the Cornflakes?

There is nothing quite like hotel living. Or at least, not when you’re staying in a hotel for work.

At home, for instance, you don’t have to face muzak with your bacon and egg. Shown to the furthest corner of the dining area first thing on Thursday morning, The Other Half was growling instantly: “Who thought I needed cheerful music with my breakfast?”

Perhaps it was a deliberate technique for getting guests in and out as quickly as possible, because after bolting his fodder with more than usual alacrity, he bolted outside for a fag, muttering grimly that, if he didn’t escape quickly, he was going “to murder someone”.

But we were in sometimes-sunny Bournemouth for a full week, so there was no escape. And although I am well over the original strangeness of it, there is something rather odd about meeting colleagues, bosses (clients) and members at breakfast for an entire week.

Odd – and not perhaps conducive to relaxation.

My own responsibilities involved penning reports on this year's UNISON conference.

That is, in effect, the union's parliament, and the debates are as impassioned and varied as one might expect.

Of course, as a member of the team staffing the conference - albeit a freelance member - obviously I cannot contribute to the debates. But like anyone else in that position, I suspect, there are times when I desperately want to say something.

So I have to make do with little notes to myself in the margins of my spiral-bound reporters' notebook.

At other times, I simply long for one of those rolly-eyed emoticons, when hearing something that i Personally find risable.

But there are always, of course, highlights. TUC president Paul Kenny turned up and delivered an entertaining speech while making me wonder if he was Ray Winstone's long lost twin. I kept expecting him to turn to Dave Pentis at any moment and say: "You're the daddy".

Neville Lawrence addressed conference on Friday and reduced much of the hall to tears with a quiet and dignified retelling of how he heard about his son's murder and the struggle for justice that has followed.

And he went on to say that privatisation of the police would be a dreadful step, with profit coming before solving crime.

When you look at the case of his own son or that of murdered private detective Daniel Morgan - let alone many miscarriages of justice - that's a salutary reminder of just how negative a step such a sell-off would be.

Carmen Mayusa, a nurse and trade union lead from Colombia, where they murder and 'disappear' trade unionists as regularly as most of us take a shower, made everyone realise that things could be a lot worse, while four of the wives of the Miami Five highlighted the injustice of the continuing imprisonment of their husbands by the US.

Our own little team was based in a bunker - sorry, room - surrounded by tons of cable and the usual piles of conference documentation, trying to keep the tech running while filing a mass of reporting from the conference hall.

Away from the serious stuff, there were chances to enjoy the banter - I know who the Manchester United fans are and had great fun joining delegates to watch the England v Ukraine Euro 2012 match.

I admit to having been one of three England fans (the others, a father and son, are pictured here) running through a remarkably wide repertoire of about four songs, while several Scottish (Ukrainian for the night) members drowned their sorrows as the co-hosts failed to score.

A very rapid lunchtime trip to the Bournemouth Oceanarium, after reading that it had introduced a pair of otters last year, proved thoroughly enjoyable.

Stan and Roxy are Oriental small-clawed otters aged two, who have been at the Oceanarium since last November.

Otters are very sociable – but only within their own family groups. It's hoped that Stan and Roxy will breed – and so their group will get larger.

One of the staff was feeding them when I was there – and explained how they help to keep them active and alert. We've thankfully come a long way since animals were simply stuck in an enclosure without any thought to their mental state.

With just the iPhone for this trip, I managed a rather splendid shot of a spiny tailed lizard.

It's well worth a visit anyway, as I skimmed around some of the other exhibits: lobsters - impossible not to think, 'dinner!' There were sharks too and a little turtle (or similar) that spotted me at the window and turned to swim right up to me

The otters gave me a much-needed dose of cuteness, that sent me back into the conference hall with a glow about me.

But for sheer, much-needed serenity, there were moments of total calm in the early mornings, sitting outside watching the sea, with the sounds of the wind, the waves and the birds soothing. There was food - and there were some personal moments of note - but that'll have to wait for another day.

Kittens off colour

It has been a funny old few days – and there are substantial parts of recent days that I have no desire ever to repeat.

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear – and after getting ready for work, I popped the kittens into the cat basket to nip to the vet for their post-operation check. The night before, we'd spotted that Loki had been trying to chew her stitches, so fully expected her to arrive home with one of those 'collars' on that would stop her doing just that.

But the diagnosis was that both Loki and Otto had picked up infections in the wounds where their surgery had taken place – and indeed, Otto's was worse.

They had antibiotic jabs and then both had those conical collars popped over their protesting heads. They were not best impressed.

When I got them home, I called into work and had a chat with my boss. Since I was also under orders to bathe their wounds twice daily, it seemed coherent to take the remaining days of the week off. This was a lot easier because we were in one of our quietest periods.

You can't laugh at cats, of course. But it was tempting, watching Loki try to adapt to the cone on her head. Cats use their whiskers to tell them a great deal about distance, and with those cut off from the rest of the world, it was obviously not as easy to move around.

Otto, however, didn't want to move at all, but simply to curl up on the sofa next to me. Later, I managed to encourage her to eat, but she was hardly enthused.

Not that eating was much easier than moving around, as the plastic tended to butt up against the bowl whenever they tried to reach meat or biscuits. I spent part of the day helping them with that – and similarly helping them when they wanted to go to the litter tray.

By Friday, Loki had perked up, but Otto was not better. I phoned the vet, talked to an assistant, and was given reassuring words – but also told that, if I was still concerned, the surgery would be open that evening. At 4pm, having wavered between: 'don't be an hysteric, it'll be fine' and 'I'll never forgive myself if I don't take her' for hours, I phoned a cab.

We arrived at the surgery a few minutes after it opened at 5pm and, since someone had just cancelled an appointment, we had no time to wait. I didn't care whether I was over-reacting – I wanted to be absolutely on the safe side.

The vet – not the same one (although they're all Antipodeans) – decided very quickly that I had done the right thing. She wasn't any worse – but she wasn't any better. He checked her weight – she hadn't lost any in the intervening 30 hours, which was good – and then gave her another antibiotic jab, followed by an anti-inflammatory injection, and handed me antibiotic tablets for two doses a day for six days, with a reminder on bathing with a strongly concentrated saline solution.

I had, thankfully, trusted my instincts and done the right thing – particularly since it was a bank holiday weekend.

Later that night, she started sitting up and paying a bit more attention to the world. By Saturday evening – The Other Half had done watching duty while I'd gone to Manchester for a match – she was properly perky again. Indeed, it became clear over the last two days that both of them were brighter than they'd been for a month or so, since puberty had started and they'd begun dipping in and out of heat. It was back to play fighting with us and bouncing around – albeit with coned heads that see them both trotting around with rocking heads, like those little bobbing dog toys on the back shelves of cars.

I had had a moment or two of real fear: but everything seems to be okay now. They can't go into the garden until their stitches are out and their collars off – that'll be next week, I think – but that's a sensible precaution. Otto is taking her tablets really easily – not least because she's been having them disguised in a little bit of French pate each time, and she seems to approve deeply of such a meaty treat.

People might dismiss them as 'pets' and say that they're 'only animals', but that is to totally misunderstand and underestimate a relationship. Seeing them both back in such bubbly and bouncy form is a real joy – just one of the pleasures of the relationship that has developed with us. Although knowing that all Otto wanted when she wasn't feeling good was to be with me, touching me, was also intensely moving. And now she can jump around again – including right into my arms.

A case of 'enlightened self-interest'

It's not clear that having kittens is supposed to produce any philosophical reflection.

But in the last couple of days, my mind has drifted to Jeremy Bentham and his comments on the rights of animals.

The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why human beings should be adandoned with redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may be one day recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.

What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the facility to reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old.

But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? But Can they suffer?



Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

The central point here is that we do not grant a concept of human rights on the basis of certain abilities – primarily, the ability to think, so why do we exclude animals from any idea of rights on the basis of a lack of sentience, for instance? It's not logical.

Otto and Loki were 10 weeks old just two days ago. It's extraordinary to think of that incredibly short timespan (from a human perspective at least) when you see just how much of their world they already understand and know how to deal with. And how they're learning every day.

Loki, for instance, already knows how to open doors. He's too small and light to do it yet, but he knows the basic idea and jumps up to try.

One of his predecessors, Mack, could do it most adroitly. If we had guests staying overnight, we'd warn them to put a stack of big books against the door if they didn't want a feline visitor in the night. New guests would generally laugh in the way that you do when you're trying to humour overly-indulgent parents who are raving about the fantastic abilities of their child. So then they'd go in the spare room and shut the door.

We took to standing nearby to watch what unfolded. Mack had a deep belief that internal doors in the house should be open. All the time. So he'd saunter up to this offense to his sensibilities, stand against it, reach up and pull down the leaver handle while pushing. It was always most gratifying to watch people's reactions to this.

I've also seen him do things like sit in front of the old stereo – a mass of knobs and buttons and sliding things – and move them around. Now I doubt if he was actually trying to correct the balance for Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, but he'd seen that such things could be moved – he'd seen and understood what door handles were for – and he could do the same. On other occasions, he'd quite deliberately plop his paw down on the button on the telephone that would finish a call.

So never mind Bentham's dogs and horses: the same applies to cats – even kittens are way more developed intellectually than infants, so if we say that a new-born baby has human rights, it isn't on the basis of an ability to reason.

And then there's emotion: more than once it's been asked as to whether animals have emotions. I'm not sure that I've ever known such an absurd question. It could only ever be asked by someone who hasn't actually lived with a non-human animal.

A week or so ago I described how, when I was in my youth at home, our new family dog (who'd have been just over one at the time) went into a corner, ears back, as we were getting Christmas presents – only to go utterly potty when she got something at the end. Now I know anthropomorphism is a danger, but it's not rocket science to interpret that as emotional responses.

And right now Boudicca is going through a range of emotions over having the kittens in the house: fascination and downright irritation are but two that are blindingly obviously. We're having to make especially sure that she doesn't feel ignored.

Of course, it gets a bit complex – and cats make it even more so. If you say that cats have rights, on the basis of Bentham's analysis, then what about their food? Cats are obligate omnivores: they need meat. Humans – and dogs – are omnivores: they can get by healthily enough with no meat in their diet (although I always feel sorry for the vegetarian bloodhound in Shirley Valentine).

It would be one thing for me to say: 'oh, I think animals have rights – and I won't eat meat'. But it's downright wrong to try to make an obligate carnivore abide by such a moral position. But to accept nature and allow them to eat meat, also means that you accept at least the possibility of suffering by the animals that constitute their food.

Back in the 1980s, I was a vegetarian. There – that's an admission over and done with.

It started as a financial thing – I had little money – but I stuck with it after finding that I seemed to have more energy.

My vegetarianism lasted for close to a decade, but died a death one day in east London when, on the way to work one morning, the smell of a bacon butty being served in a deli bar was just too much.

It was still a long time before I learned to really love meat. But then, it was a long time before I really learned to love food in general. What has subsequently developed is an appreciation that the meat that is worth eating is the meat that has come from animals that have been treated in the best way possible; that have not been crammed into factory sheds or fed on the boiled down remains of other animals that they, as vegetarians, would never naturally consume.

Chicken is a perfect case in point. The battery farmed birds that you can buy for little more than pennies in supermarkets are pretty dreadful in terms of flavour. It's no wonder that cookery books and shows are full of dishes that make the use of loads of spices and sauces with such meat almost obligatory. They've little or no flavour otherwise. And dieting means that most people want breast meat rather than anything else – even though it has less flavour yet. If I'm buying only portions of a chicken, then I'll get the thighs – they're tastier and far cheaper, since they're so much less in demand.

Bacon is another case worth noting. The pigs that are reared in appallingly inhumane conditions in mass factories produce pretty dire meat. As an example, I could nip around the corner to a little shop and buy a pack of six slices of factory bacon for around £1.99. But when it hits the pan, white gunk will start to spew out (water that has been pumped into the flesh to make it seem better), it'll shrink to half its size and the rind will never crisp up. I'd rather pay double, less often, and get far more for my money. And the pig will have got a far better deal out of it too.

Of course it doesn't come cheap. Which is rather where the Mediterranean approach of eating meat – but not every day – comes in.

So I think it's still perfectly possible to believe in a concept such as animal rights – and be a meat eater. The key is how we treat our food animals (and the animals we use for leather etc). And after all, most of them wouldn't even exist at all were it not for our food needs.

And the better we look after them – the better life we give them – the better the steak on our plate at the end of that life.

And taste isn't the only issue: BSE – or 'mad cow disease' as it became popularly known – was the result of farmers feeding cattle (vegetarians) with the boiled down remains of other animals (although at a reduced temperature, to cut costs – which was the prime cause of the disease spreading in the first place). And it's no coincidence that swine flu broke out in humans right next to one of those whopping big pig factories.

So I'm going to quote Babylon 5 again to conclude: let's apply G'Kar's philosophy to this – let's make it a case of "enlightened self-interest".

A baby in my arms

The more I think about it, there is not a thing in the world that makes me marvel as much as the knowledge that humans can have relationships with other animals – that we can cross the divide between species.

I've spent a long time today with a kitten in my arms: a little baby, only just over eight weeks old, snoozing away completely comfortably, snuggled up to me.

Occasionally Otto would twitch while dreaming. Occasionally he'd change position. Occasionally, he'd get partly up and nuzzle me and purr and give me a lick, before settling down again and dozing off. Utterly sure that he was safe to relax and rest. Utterly confident that I would not harm him.

How incredibly, utterly beautiful.

I am in awe.

Astonishing picture of a threatened world

A Shadow Falls by Nick Brandt

I have a small collection of photography books, but not many. This was one that was reviewed in a photography magazine I'd bought during a work trip last month; it was that publication's book of the month – and it was not difficult to see why.

They published small reproductions of several pictures – they completely bore out the review that in so many other circumstances might have been seen as over the top and gushing: I went straight online to order a copy.

This is beautiful stuff; awesome stuff. Nick Brandt has given himself the task of 'memorialising' the natural grandeur of East Africa. This is neither landscape photography nor wildlife photography, but a combination of both. And it has a feeling of creating a mythology right in front of your eyes.

It would never have occurred to me to photograph such a subject (or such subjects) in monochrome or sepia, but the treatment works so well. Brandt works with film, not digital, and there is an astonishing depth of tone that you still find in top-notch film work.

But what stands out most of all is the dignity of the animals he has captured on film. A dignity – yes, I know that this is anthropomorphism – a dignity that makes you want to weep when you consider the fragility of their world, which faces so many threats, and mostly from our species. The pictures have an astonishing intimacy – you feel drawn right into the heart of the lives of his non-human subjects.

Brandt has certainly done a spot of the old dodging a burning – manipulation of photographs is not some new fangled creation of the digital age – but he has created some utterly astonishing images. The mother cheetah with her cubs on the rock is ... well, it's just beautiful. There is a magnificent empathy here and a great deal of power.

It's nearly Christmas: I don't usually do this sort of thing, but if you like photography in general, or if you like landscape photography and/or wildlife photography or if you like B&W photography, then get this book. It has a special something that is difficult to describe, but which lifts it way above most photography. I simply cannot imagine what it must be like to take pictures of this quality.

All the pictures I've reproduced here can be viewed larger by clicking on them. The book itself is printed on excellent art paper, and comes in large format (39.2cm x 31.2cm) that allows the pictures to be viewed easily.

Animal crackers

Vague thoughts had crossed my mind before heading off to Berlin that we might potter along to the city’s zoo (the one in the west, that is) at some point – not least so that one could say that one had said ‘hello’ to Knut, the world famous polar bear who is now two years old.

It was Tuesday and the weather forecast was not brilliant. We’d made the most of the morning with a boat trip on the Spree, before ducking into a café-bar, Berliner Republik, to escape the inevitable shower.

Musing over the rest of the afternoon ahead, The Other Half suggested the Zoologischer Garten. On first consideration, time in the open on a day of inclement weather didn’t appeal massively. But then the reasoning occurred that such weather might reduce the number of coach parties wandering around the place. So off we set from Friedrichstraße Bahnhof.

With the largest number of species in the world, it also offered a chance to photograph some exotic animals – something I’d never tried before.

Well, it was certainly quiet. We saw some elephants waiting to get into their ‘house’. And then a lovely sight of two young giraffes and two adults.

The big cats all seemed to be inside too: as we ambled into their quarters, a male lion was roaring, sending goosebumps up and down the spine. The cats themselves are magnificent – and a particularly insouciant leopard posed very nicely for a shot.

The carnivore house also houses the meerkats and the dwarf mongooses, which seem to be a competition in who could out-cute who. The meerkats do all the things you’ve seen on documentaries – including having one standing guard even though there’s no predatory threat.

And the mongooses spend a lot energy trying to all curl around a single branch together to sleep.

That produced technical issues – getting close enough to the glass to avoid it messing up pictures. But the results were very pleasing.

Our fellow apes were suitably ape-like and didn’t engage me anywhere near as much as I’d expected, some of the monkeys were far more fun – one little one dropped a rope while we were watching. Deeply distressed by this, it was comforted by a fellow monkey. It's difficult not to anthropomorphisise at such moments

And then there was a panda. Who was asleep. As pandas are most likely to be.

We grabbed a lunch from the café, where the food had been sitting beneath lamps for some time, given the lack of crowds, then hit the trail again, catching the pacing brown bear and finally, Knut. Who was lying down and doing not a lot, until he hauled himself up and ambled into his own indoor quarters.

It was the right idea. A few moments later, it started to rain. I managed to get under cover long enough to get my camera into it’s nice, waterproof bag, but got absolutely drenched as we headed back, as quickly as possible to the Elephant Gate.

It didn’t take much to decide to visit again. And we spent the best part of the Saturday there, in better weather and with bigger crowds.

The photography was challenging, fun and very rewarding.

But what made these visits so enjoyable was seeing the animals up close, in some cases, interacting.

Cats, for instance: it doesn’t matter how big they are, I now realise that they all eat grass, all patrol and all like to sleep on shelves. Which brought to mind the sight of The Queen Bee dozing on a bookshelf. Although I won’t be telling her that she’s got a lot in common with lions and leopards – she’s got more than enough grand ideas as it is.

Amazingly, on the Saturday, Bau Bau the panda was awake, while taking an extra lens with me enable me to get some corking shots of some of the birds, including while being eyeballed by a bloody big king vulture, which seemed to be echoing Robert de Niro and asking: "You looking at me?".

Berlin is doing valuable work in terms of conservation, but what seeing so many animals in the flesh, as opposed to via the TV screen, does is to usefully remind you of just how beautiful – and awesome – the rest of the this planets inhabitants are, and how much they need protecting.

I last saw a zoo – a tiny, private one – in KwaZulu Natal about 11 years ago (run by a certain famous circus family) and it was dreadful – very, very upsetting, with cages that were far, far too small for big cats and neurotic apes that were alone and with sod all to distract them.

Berlin is what zoos can be. And I won’t be waiting as long to pay a call to a zoo again.

A busy day in the court of The Queen B

The Queen B is having to do some quite serious resting now, after what seems to have been a really very exciting and tiring day in her court.

As if the spring chorus of birds twittering isn't enough to make her nearly distracted, including one small bird actually landing half way down the Pyracantha inside the garden to tease her (it just escaped), she had the extra special thrill today of seeing a squirrel pottering around in her domain.

As far as we know, this is a first: there are plenty of squirrels nearby, but this is the first time we've ever seen one right on our patio, although I suspect it's the same one that I saw a couple of weeks ago, climbing onto the first floor balcony of one of our neighbour's flats in order to get at the bird feeder that was hanging there. Convenience food for squirrels.

Boudicca's reaction was an initial double take: standing in the middle of the living room, staring out of the closed patio doors; a sort of shake of the head and dramatic blinking.

Then she hurled herself at the window, muttering something about there only being "one bushy tail allowed around here!"

At this, the squirrel spotted her and, suitably chastised, took flight over the fence.

She ran through to the bedroom to check from that window, and then back to the living room.

She's not much bigger than a squirrel, but size isn't much object in The Queen B's world. Perhaps it's a result of naming her after the legendary English warrior queen who gave the Romans a spanking, but she's quite happy to take on bigger critters than herself.

A case in point is Basil.

Basil lives in a little block next to ours. One female human constitutes his entire staff, and she's pretty dismal at the job too, leaving him outside for long periods of time.

Basil is rather large – and very soft. He stands in the carpark behind our garden and cries. And indeed, there is something about him that makes me want to give in and call him, using my best Prunella Scales as Sybil voice from Fawlty Towers. He only wants attention, food and slightly better staff. Occasionally, he feels so desperately in need of this that he'll struggle over a couple of fences to come into our garden and sit in front of the window, hoping to be allowed in.

Boudicca goes beserk. And if she has the opportunity, loves nothing better than to chase this cat, almost twice her size, right back over the fences. Remarkably, Basil's memory seems to be rather short term, since he never seems to recall the last time his furry ass got clawed as he scrambled for safety.

So, all in all, it was an exciting day. One can quite understand why she needs to put her paws up now.

The Queen B finds cause to fret

A lovely story cropped up the other day about Santino, a male chimp in a Swedish zoo that has been collecting stones and stashing them away, so that he could later use them to throw at visitors.

Researchers have said that it’s evidence of non-human animals planning for future events – precious little of which had been found previously.

But I’m sure many pet owners see amazing behaviour on a regular basis.

The Other Half and I got home rather late yesterday evening – to find that the Queen B had decided to break with her usual habit and not come to greet us.

The routine is that we have to go into the bedroom, where she jumps on the bed and we all say ‘hello’.

We walked into the bedroom, sans the cat, to find that there was debris all over the floor. A little glass lampshade that we’d bought years ago, put on top of a bookshelf and then forgotten, had crashed to the ground and shattered into smithereens.

Boudicca likes getting on top of that particular bookshelf, so it seems reasonable to conclude, in true Holmesian fashion, that she had been up there while we were out and had knocked it down.

But what is fascinating is that, on the basis of her out-of-character reluctance to engage in our usual greeting ritual (and cats love routine), it seems that she realised that she’d caused it to fall down and was worried in some way about it – possibly even worried what would happen when we got home.

We had to go into the living room, where she was crouched down watching us from behind a chair, to tell her that everything was alright before she came out to get her usual ‘welcome home’ fuss.

The idea that non-human animals are not really sentient has been taking knocks for some years now. Although anecdotes don’t count as scientific evidence of anything, personally witnessing such behaviour is absolutely fascinating.

It's all a question of dignity

I am now convinced that even inanimate matter has a life of it’s own.

The Queen B herself told me so this morning.

There she was, sitting on the bathroom shelf amid the pots and potions as I went about my ablutions, when the shelf rose up and tipped her off.

I know this, because cats do not fall off things all by themselves.

And if they do have such ‘an accident’, then the Great Commandment applies: ‘thou shalt not laugh at the cat’. Because the cat gets very, very huffy indeed if she sees you laughing at her.

She stared accusingly at the shelf – so I know it was the shelf’s fault. I bit my tongue.

Then she turned and, tail in the air, strutted out of the room, determined to show every ounce of her feline dignity.

A couple of hours later, my attention was drawn to a 2006 report from Newsweek, which says that scientists studying the behaviour of non-human animals, in the search for signs of self-awareness, have discovered that the famous mirror test might not be a reliable indicator.

This is the test whereby a mark is put on an animal and then they’re placed in front of a mirror to see if they notice that something is different about their appearance – to see if, for instance, they attempt to remove the mark. Elephants can’t ‘pass’ the test, apparently – although we know they’re intelligent. Yet some animals that do ‘pass’ are not expected to, because they don’t have the ‘right’ sort of brain.

Boudicca, our little Queen B, has never shown any indication of interest in her reflection. None of her predecessors did either. But they have all shared that sense of dignity that particularly reveals itself when cats fall (or not).

And if you have a finely tuned sense of personal dignity, then it would seem fair to suggest that that reveals a certain self-awareness. So, on an anecdotal basis, I suspect that the scientists are right: the mirror test is flawed.

Of course, reading this article the day after Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, in the same year that also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, served as a useful reminder of just how anthropocentric we humans are, right down to the whole idea of our having dominion over the rest of life on this ball of rock we call home.

So it’s rather amusing to see that even the Vatican has finally got around to admitting that evolution happens. But that's so last century, boys.

Boudicca, who probably doesn’t realise this (although one can never be too sure with cats), is an everyday reminder to me that we are not the only sentient beings, and that we have a responsibility of care for the rest of the world around us, which we should never simply take for granted.

Although perhaps that’s just more anthropocentricity speaking? After all, I’m equally convinced that in any relationship with a cat, I’m not remotely the top dog, so to speak.