Saturday At The Zoo

Heather and I spent the whole day at the San Diego Zoo on Saturday. Usually it's just me, and I generally only stay part of the day, but this time my sister and her family joined us. Here are a few images. We got there right at opening, and the morning light on the Flamingos was particularly nice.

The Hippos were out swimming around, it's the first time I've seen them doing that in a while. Usually they're just huddled up in a corner napping.

The Amur Leopards were up, sort of.

The Mountain Lions (Puma, Cougar) were paying a lot of attention to any small children that happened to pass by, especially kids in strollers.

I think this is the first time I've seen both of the Lynx up and moving around. It probably helped that a few minutes before we got there the keepers had put out some fresh meat snacks for them.

We spent a lot of time around the big cats, which is exactly what my niece wanted to see. We got really lucky, with so many of them up and about. Well, all except the the two I usually spend the most time at - the Malayan Tigers and the Jaguars. We didn't see much of either of them. Here's a Cheetah, up close and personal.

We spent some time with the Giraffes. The newest ones are getting bigger every day. Our last stop was the Reptiles. The Indian Gharials are always fun to check out.

This Boa Constrictor was tough to get a clean shot of, but he was great to watch . . .

. . . and I finally got a shot of snake's forked tongue, even if it is a bit blurry.

My niece and nephew each brought their iPods and took lots of pictures. Just in case she didn't find any good animals to take pictures of, my niece brought a friend along. This is Chester the Leopard - or maybe he's a Cheetah - hard to say. I shot these from a ways back with my long lens as she set up the shots for her camera. Here he is in front of the Flamingos.

Here he is checking out the Amur Leopards.

Checking out a cool Elephant sculpture on the way into the Elephant Odyssey exhibit.

Catching a mouse. My niece was getting pretty creative in spotting places to put Chester for a photo op.

Click here to see more images from our day at the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, October 6.