It was a very pleasant morning at Prehistoric Park. Head keeper Kyle Taymor certainly thought so as he observed the animals in the Hell Creek herbivore paddock. At that very moment he could see most of the enclosure's inhabitants gathered around the lake for the sake of a drink. The combined herd of ceratopsians were gathered near the western edge of the lake, alongside the ankylosaurs. The edmontosaurus and pachycephalosaurus, meanwhile were all gathered around the southern edge of the lake. Noticeably, the ornithomimus were absent.
However, the most striking animal at the lake was the alamosaurus, keeping his mighty neck bent down so that he could take a nice long drink from the lake. This alamosaurus, an adult male named Custer who, despite being the only one of his kind at the park, had developed an unspoken camaraderie with the other Hell Creek herbivores, to the point where he seemed to have become the paddock's unofficial 'leader'. That was why he was allowed to drink from the lake first.
Of course, some of the other herbivores present appeared to be slightly less patient in their waiting than the others. The dominant male triceratops, a large bull named Toppsy, seemed especially on edge as he stood very tensely at his spot alongside alpha male torosaurus Ferdinand. One of Toppsy's daughters, named Cera, seemed to share her father's tensely grudging level of patience as she pawed her right front foot from where she stood alongside her brother Theo. Of the two male ankylosaurus, the younger of the two, named Bumpy, seemed to be raring to go, with only the watchful gaze of the older Abrams keeping him from moving closer. Einstein the pachycephalosaurus was pawing the ground impatinetly.
But after another few minutes, with one last contented gulp, Custer finally finished his turn. At which point he lifted his head and neck back up to full height and bellowed as if in appreciation, before almost nodding at his paddock mates and leaving to the forested areas at the back of the paddock. This was just the signal that all the other herbivores had been waiting for, as they all started eagerly drinking once Custer had left.
Toppsy was the first to start drinking, gulping water from the lake, joined by both the rest of his herd and Ferdinand's – the rest of the herbivores joined in. Kyle couldn't help but shake his head side to side in bemusement at this spectacle.
"I see they're all happy to have a nice morning drink."
Kyle looked to his right to see Linda Eberhart standing next to a young Vietnamese woman dressed in the green Prehistoric Park keepers' attire. He knew the younger keeper was Cassandra Cheng – one of the keepers who worked in this section.
Cass nodded her head, a look of calm respect on her face, "Good morning again, sir," she said.
"Good morning to you as well." Kyle then looked at Linda. "Both of you."
He nodded his head and looked back at the herd, still drinking. "I don't see the ornithomimus anywhere." He paused, before turning back to look at Linda and Cass. "I presume that's what you want to talk about."
"That's correct sir." Cass nodded her head. "The guy who was on shift before me didn't explain?"
"Yeah, he didn't go into much detail," Kyle admitted as he remembered the call he'd got.
"Well to make a long story short, there'll be some new arrivals soon."
Kyle promptly directed his attention back to Linda, eyebrow raised in clear intrigue. "The ornithomimus laid their eggs?"
Cass nodded her head. "Yeah."
"And now's probably as good of a time as ever to go in to examine them and the eggs," Linda added.
Kyle nodded his head. "Understood. Let's get to work."
. . . . .
The three staff members watched from behind a large bush, as the ornithomimus flock gathered around their nesting area. The seven females who had laid were brooding their nests, whilst other females were beginning to scrape out areas near them – the keepers suspected the other females in the flock were gravid too – and that they would start laying in the next couple of days or so.
It was unclear which males had fathered the eggs – mating in the flock was promiscuous, with females mating with several different males. If it was anything like birds, it was possible that each clutch would have multiple paternities. Khatin would need to do DNA tests on the chicks – as soon as they could get near them, of course.
On the whole, however, nesting seemed to be a co-operative activity –the whole flock, males and females both, circled the nest site and the brooding females, constantly scanning the air for danger.
Linda nodded her head. "So far things seem to be going well."
"Yeah," said Cass.
"Yes," said Kyle. "But we'd best keep an eye on them as much as possible, particularly if any of the eggs end up knocked out of the nests."
This was a very valid point that Kyle had brought up. After all, the ornithomimus would probably abandon any eggs that rolled out of the nest – constrained by their instincts to protect the nests under any circumstances.
Cass nodded her head. "We'll keep an eye on them. If any eggs fall out, we'll remove them."
"I certainly hope so," said Kyle.
At the sound of a low grunting nearby, the ornithomimus herd and the three staff members turned to see the four ankylosaurus browsing on some of the bushes. This soon became problematic when Bumpy moved dangerously close to the ornithomimus nests. The ornithomimids all squawked and began kicking at Bumpy, much to the young ankylosaur's confusion.
Watching the unfolding conflict, Kyle, Linda, and Cass found themselves wondering what to do. They all wanted to see if they could get Bumpy's attention and lead him away. However, that might make the ornithomimus start attacking them.
Then the sound of a grunt got their attention, and they looked back to see Bumpy looking at Abrams, who grunted again and gestured with his head as if indicating for Bumpy to rejoin the other ankylosaurus. Bumpy snorted, lowered his body as if in submission, and then turned and lumbered back over to where the other three ankylosaurus were positioned. Once they were sure the young ankylosaurus was no longer a threat, the ornithomimus flock relaxed and resumed watching the nest.
Cass sighed in relief. "Crisis averted," she said. "I'll say." Linda nodded her head.
"Indeed," said Kyle. "But we should watch for a bit longer just to be safe."
. . . . .
A quarter of an hour later, the three staff members had returned to the centre of the paddock. At this point, the ankylosaurus had left the clearing, and most of the ornithomimus flock had also managed to cover up the nests and eggs with plant matter, leaving some of the flock behind to tend to the nests whilst they took a drink from the lake. Kyle, Linda and Cass has gone to different portions of the paddock to watch over the residents.
"Better late than never," said Linda as she observed the ornithomimus peacefully drinking from the paddock's lake. She presumed that, once most of the flock had returned, those who had been left behind to guard the nests would drink from the lake.
At the sound of a trumpeting honk coming from behind her, the veterinarian turned her head in time to see an edmontosaurus standing behind her, staring curiously in her direction. Linda couldn't help but smile, for she recognized this edmontosaurus quite well. This was Carina, the matriarch of the herd, who Linda had bonded quite closely with over the course of several visits at the veterinary facilities. Aside from the scars on her body, Carina was also the largest edmontosaurus at the park.
This fact did not at all surprise Linda, for while Carina had been noted by her handlers to act rather gruff and cautious around unfamiliar people, she was quite friendly towards all her herd mates and most of the Hell Creek herbivores. Carina had acted very cautious around her the first few times they'd met before starting to let her guard down. Carina was probably curious as to what Linda was doing in the paddock.
She then took another brief look at the various scars on Carina's form, and she nodded her head in clear respect. Clearly, judging by the scars, this hadrosaur was a real fighter. This was unsurprising – most large herbivores were fairly risky prey items, even for the deadliest predators.
Carina let out another, quieter honk and walked slowly up to Linda, an inquiring look on her duckbilled face. Linda chuckled. She knew exactly what it was that Carina was now 'asking about'. Slipping on one of her 'examination gloves', she patted the hadrosaur on top of her massive head. "Good to be here with you too, girl," she said. The edmontosaurus matriarch warbled appreciatively as Linda patted her head.
The sound of another hollow honking attracted the attention of both Linda and Carina, and they turned their heads in time to see Carina's herd staring at their leader. Carina looked to Linda, as if asking for permission to re-join her herd.
"Go on ahead girl," said Linda. She nodded her head. "You can re-join your herd. I won't stop you."
Carina rumbled appreciatively, turned around, and walked calmly back to her herd. Linda continued smiling even as she watched Carina walk away from her to re-join her herd. Whilst she didn't like to play favourites, Carina had won her over. She smiled as she watched the herd peacefully browsing, as two of the juveniles tussled. It was moments like this when she realised just how special their duty was – this was the first time anyone had seen this in 65 million years.
. . . . .
Cass, meanwhile, was observing the ceratopsian and pachycephalosaurus herds. As she carefully watched from atop a large stone, all the adults were browsing for food or scouting out for threats while all the youngsters were either browsing or mock-sparring. The younger males were sparring, mock-shoving and butting at each other – in preparation for battles to come. Their cousins the ceratopsians, were playfighting too – Cass could now see Cera playfully locking horns with one of her sisters.
She shook her head side to side in bemusement. "Sibling rivalry," she thought to herself. "Never changes."
For a brief moment she felt a pang of melancholy at this thought, as she was now reminded once again of her troubled dynamic with Tina. Then she steeled herself and shook her head side to side to clear her thoughts. "Not the time, not the time," she hissed to herself under her breath.
The sound of the pachycephalosaurs hooting caused her to turn around in time to see Einstein prancing around and hooting, trying to playfully goad some of the adults into chasing after him. Naturally, none of the adults were having it...
...except for one male named Copernicus who charged in annoyance at his seeming tormentor, much to the playful Einstein's delight. This chase continued until Einstein accidentally led Copernicus into crashing against a browsing Luxa's side, at which point the female turned around and bellowed angrily at the now quite startled Copernicus, who lowered himself submissively, as Einstein came to a stop and hooted confusedly. Sandor, alerted by the the commotion, lifted his head from his own browsing and looked meaningfully towards the direction of the commotion, his amber eyes narrowed.
Cass winced, shaking her head in sympathy at the sight. Even in times of peace things could get chaotic amongst the animals of this park.
The sound of a high-pitched grunt coming from her left drew her attention in that direction in time to see Theo standing nearby. The young triceratops stood absolutely still apart from his waving tail, the dull red patterns on his frill, destined to turn brighter as he got older, seemingly glowing in the sunlight as he gazed curiously at Cass.
The Vietnamese American keeper chuckled, and lightly rubbed her fingers against the small horn on the tip of his snout. At the moment, all three of his horns were small nubs, like the other juvenile ceratopsians. Eventually they would grow longer and sharper, Cass knew. And once that happened, she had every reason to believe that Theo and the other juveniles would become more aggressive. But for now, Theo was still playful and mid-mannered. In fact, he'd always been like that ever since she first started working with him, less likely to act gruff or temperamental compared to Cera. He reminded her of Einstein, in some ways, only without the irksome taste for her apples that Einstein had, and he was also much less of a prankster.
The sound of an adult triceratops grunt attracted Cass and Theo's attention, and they looked in that direction in time to see Theo's mother, a female named Tria staring expectantly towards them. The sight of this was all Theo needed to see, as he then grunted appreciatively at Cass before then turning around and galloping back to his mother and siblings.
A curious sounding hooting noise caused Cass to look to her right in time to see that Einstein had now come to a stop at that position. Evidently, he'd finished undergoing his 'confrontation' with Sandor and Luxa over what had happened with him and Copernicus. Cass chuckled and shook her head side to side. "Nothing gets you down too much huh?"
Einstein hooted, and crouched while waving his tail side to side as if indicating he wanted her to play with him. Cass chuckled and shook her head again. "Silly dinosaur," she said in an amused tone before drawing out what looked like a rubber ball and tossing it over Einstein's head. The pachycephalosaurus was quick to start rushing after it, hooting in delight as he did so. Cass chuckled as she watched this happen.
. . . . .
Kyle, meanwhile, was now busy observing Custer and the ankylosaurs as they all moved around browsing through the forests at the back of the paddock. He took note of how the ankylosaurs had split off and were browsing separately. Ankylosaurs were solitary animals, for the most part.
In that moment, Kyle found himself focusing particularly strongly on one of the denversaurus. This one, a male named Sherman, he couldn't help but note reminded him of one of the security guards…. Bristow, wasn't it? Yeah that was right. Much like the short and stocky Australian security guard, Sherman was friendly and amiable most of the time, but aggressive when provoked. He rolled his eyes. "They'd get on like a house on fire," he whispered under his breath.
Another ankylosaur-like grunting from right behind him caused Jack to carefully look in that direction in time to see Abrams standing a couple feet behind him. At that instant, the mighty ankylosaurus was staring cautiously at Kyle, dark eyes narrowed and brown orange scales slightly agleam in the morning sunlight. Kyle stood as still as possible, careful not to make any sudden moves to provoking the ankylosaur. Kyle knew that Abrams was a difficult animal to read. Gruff and aloof, one could never really tell for certain what he was thinking. There were some reports from the keepers that said that he could be a real jolly gentle giant if in a good enough mood – however, it was difficult to tell when that was. However, as tough and no-nonsense as he was, he usually gave fair warning before attacking by lifting his tail and slamming it on the ground a couple times...only foregoing this warning when he was really angry.
Fortunately for Kyle, Abrams eventually seemed to decide that Kyle wasn't a threat, and the ankylosaurus visibly relaxed, before moving off deeper into the forest. Kyle let out a sigh of relief as this happened. "Best be a little more careful next time," he thought to himself. Then he heard more ankylosaur grunting from the same direction Abrams was heading, and the head keeper looked in that direction in time to see Abrams, much to his surprise, gently push one of the adult female ankylosaurus, who had gotten one of her feet stuck in a small mud hole. The female grunted appreciatively at Abrams and resumed her earlier trek, with Abrams himself resuming his browsing as if nothing ever happened.
"Well I'll be," said Kyle as he processed what he'd just witnessed. He had not at all expected that from Abrams. He shook his head side to side in bemusement. "I guess there must be more to him than meets the eye."
The sound of a sauropod's bellow caused Kyle to look back in the direction in which he'd earlier observed Custer. Sure enough, he saw the mighty alamosaurus still peacefully browsing. Kyle sighed in content. Custer looked so calm and serene right now, contently browsing from the tree. It was almost enough to make Kyle regret that Custer was currently the only alamosaurus at the park. Hopefully that would be rectified in the future.
The head keeper nodded his head. All in all, even with the occasional problem to deal with, life was quite good at the park for animals and staff members alike. "These particular animals may be from a place called Hell Creek," he whispered aloud to himself. "But here at this park, they are able to get a little taste of Heaven." He nodded his head again. "And we're lucky enough to care for them."