Cestrians aren't the only ones who have been basking in the spring sunshine - one of Chester Zoo 's inhabitants also saw the warm weather as the perfect chance to shed her winter coat.
Sophie the onager – one of the world's rarest species of wild ass – was more than happy to let a group of jackdaws pinch bits of her coat as temperatures touched 20°C at the zoo last week
Related to the domestic donkey, onagers are the rarest species of equid in the world, and with spring finally sprung and Sophie jumping at the chance to shed her fur, these plucky jackdaws spotted the perfect chance to add some unusual fur to the materials used to build their nests.
Chester Zoo’s biodiversity officer, Sarah Bird, said: “It’s great to see the jackdaws going about the business of building their nests with such creativity – and what a fine example of recycling too!”
Once found in great numbers across the deserts of Asia from Mongolia and China to India and Iran, onagers are now found in just two protected areas and are listed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCNs) red list of threatened species.
After suffering badly at the hands of illegal poaching, overgrazing and disease passed on from farm animals, there are believed to be around just 600 onagers left in the wild and very few zoos in the world even keep the species.
