THE patter of tiny feet is sounding more like a roll of thunder at a theme park experiencing its biggest baby boom for years.

Zoo keepers have been rushed off their feet coping with new arrivals ranging from baby penguins to anacondas and ring-tailed lemurs.

The abundance of births at Flamingo Land Zoo, near Malton, North Yorkshire, has proved a major crowd-pleaser, with hundreds of visitors seeing the park's newest residents make their public debuts at the weekend.

Zoo administration officer Sean Drayton said: "It is just one of those things. Sometimes we get them spread over a period of time, but now they all seem to have come at once."

Bird keepers have been the busiest of the park staff in recent weeks, with 14 baby penguins, an emu and an eagle owl chick all arriving.

"The penguin situation was all down to the parents - they all seemed to lay around the same time, which gave us problems in that they very rarely manage to rear two chicks," said Mr Drayton.

Nine of the penguin chicks will now be hand-reared, while the parents will look after the other five.

The ring-tailed lemurs, which arrived at the zoo last year as part of a breeding programme, have also produced three healthy young babies, while two additions were made to the family group of black and white lemurs. Mr Drayton said: "They will actually look after each other's youngsters. They will swap and change, which is quite useful."

Elsewhere, nine baby anacondas have hatched and are flourishing in the reptile house, while the paddocks section has seen the arrival of three baby bison, three goats, a camel and an abundance of young wallabies.

The baby boom is not expected to end just yet, with many of the site's other birds - including its famous flamingos - currently sitting on eggs.

In the next few weeks a Grant's zebra is due while the park's unusual nocturnal fat-tailed lemur is also believed to be pregnant.