Edinburgh Zoo

I’d been to Edinburgh Zoo on my previous visit to the city and had decided to revisit partly because it really is an excellent zoo but also because it was a chance to say goodbye to Yang Guang and Tian Tian the giant pandas who returned to China in December 2023. I’d been lucky enough to see one of them on my previous visit and my luck remained as I was able to take some photos this time round – though with some difficulty and using a great deal of dexterity as this was by far the busiest area of the entire zoo.

Tickets for an adult cost £26.50 if you book online in advance which is what I did. There was quite a long queue to get in – I hadn’t factored in that it was the school holidays in Scotland – but once in and outside the panda area I didn’t encounter all that many people. There was a lot of work going on to improve some of the animal enclosures so I didn’t get to see all the animals I had wanted to but still encountered some favourites. One of these was the very active greater-horned rhinoceros who came very close to where I was standing. This lovely chap’s name is Qabid and he moved here from Belgium in 2018.

I also liked Danlin, the only Chinese goral in the UK who was keeping a close eye on his surroundings.

And of course who doesn’t love a penguin? This is a king penguin which was one of the first species in the zoo and in 1919 the first chick was born here making Edinburgh the first zoo in the world to successfully breed king penguins. If you’ve ever wondered why the zoo’s logo and that of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland is that of a penguin, this is why.

There was also this lovely Scottish wildcat enjoying the sunshine from behind some bushes. There are two wildcats at the zoo, a male and a female, and they are critically endangered though the zoo and other organisations are trying to reintroduce more of them into the wild.

Plus this really lovely Grevy’s zebra. You can apparently tell them apart from Plains zebras because their stripes are much narrower – and despite about to have a drink here apparently they can go up to five days without drinking water.

There were also a lot of dinosaurs sculptures/a dinosaur trail which has become quite the must have thing in zoos these days.

It’s certainly a very good zoo and worth a visit, and as it’s extremely hilly makes for a good exercise day!