Summer visitors to Flamingo Land have been enjoying the sight of hundreds of colourful rhinos amongst the trees

Sadly, they’re not real ones. Instead they’re the work of hundreds of children who’ve visited Flamingo Land this summer and taken part in our Ready for Rhinos event, aimed at getting Flamingo Land ready for the arrival of our new Indian rhinos.

They’ve decorated paper rhino shapes in every colour of the rainbow (in fact, several rainbow rhinos can be seen in the trees) and in every pattern and style imaginable. Some children have also written messages of welcome for the rhinos. And it’s not just children who’ve been taking part; many adults have also joined in and made a rhino decoration. It just goes to show you’re never too old for colouring in.

The coloured paper rhinos aren’t the only ones that can be seen though. There’s also a large rhino statue (actually a black rhino because we couldn’t find an Indian one but don’t tell anyone) waiting to welcome the new arrivals. We had the public’s help with this decoration as well, as the entire statue is covered in hundreds of hand prints! Last week visitors were invited to dip their hands in paint and then put their hand print on the rhino statue. A choice of colours of paint was available and people couldn’t wait to leave their mark at Flamingo Land. Once again, it wasn’t just the children who were eager to get involved; take a look and you’ll notice many of the hand prints seem rather large for a child…

The decorations will remain in place until the arrival of our new Indian rhinos. The rhinos are due to move in as soon as the building work on their enclosure is complete – as they are a completely separate species to the white rhinos we have already, they need an enclosure of their own. The new enclosure is located in the area next to the baboons and all the decorations are in the trees between the baboon and wallaby enclosures. We really appreciate all the help that we’ve had from visitors this summer getting Ready for Rhinos and we hope the rhinos will appreciate their beautifully decorated new home too! A number of people have asked us whether we’ll be decorating for every new arrival at the zoo from now on. If so, we’ll need to get busy with red panda decorations soon – watch this space!