Gina and Milo finally make it to London from South Africa

Anneline is delighted to have been reunited with her African Grey parrots Gina and Milo at last, who travelled from Johannesburg to London last month.

It is quite a paperwork marathon to get everything sorted out for birds travelling to the UK from outside the EU — particularly if, like African Greys, they are one of the species on the CITES list.

There was a false start back in September when some of the paperwork didn’t arrive in time for Anneline to accompany the birds on their flight. One of the strict import requirements is that the owner or their representative must be on the same flight as the birds when the travel into the UK. Fortunately, Animal Travel in Johannesburg stepped in to care for Gina and Milo until everything was in order.

Along with her thanks to everyone involved in getting Gina and Milo to the UK, Anneline sent some photos to show how well they’ve settled in.

Spacious accommodation

Enjoying a tasty monkey nut

New jungle gym!

Beak to beak

Special arrangements for Klaus

Klaus the tortoise will be travelling with Animalcouriers from London to Bern later this month.

We’ll be making special arrangements for Klaus to avoid disrupting his normal routine while he travels. He’ll have a special travel vivarium which, at this time of year, won’t need much heating. However, we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get colder at night, so will be taking him into our hotel with us when we stop.

That may sound like a lot of bother for a tortoise, however well loved — but Klaus isn’t just your common-or-garden tortoise, He’s from a breed called Testudo Graeca which is endangered in the wild. So he’ll need his CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) registration that confirms he was captive bred and not captured in the wild. He will also need special paperwork for the export process from the UK to Switzerland.

His owner Jenny is very well up on all these requirements, and by the time Klaus is ready to travel (along with his feline companion), all the paperwork will be in place.

Natural habitat

Beautiful shell markings