Happy Halloween

Think of this as a public service announcement. If you carve a pumpkin for your front yard this year, be careful where you put it . . .

. . . You never know when the neighborhood cat is going to show up.

Okay, so maybe stuffing it with ground meat was asking for trouble.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Click here to see more, including what happened when the pumpkin wound up in the pond.
     

Ducks, Flamingos and Crested Screamers - San Diego Zoo

Here are some ducks I saw at the San Diego Zoo last weekend.

Late afternoon light on the Flamingos was pretty nice.

Here's a Crested Screamer. They live at the same pond as the Flamingos. They do live up to their names by the way. It's amazing how much noise can come out of that little head.

Click here to see more images from the weekend of Oct 26-27 at the San Diego Zoo, including some new Malayan Tiger, Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion and Amur Leopard shots.
      

San Diego Zoo - Oct 19 & 20, 2013 - Tiger, Leopard, Birds and Fishing Cat

Here are some images from Saturday and Sunday, October 19-20 at the San Diego Zoo.

Since I pretty much always make a beeline for the Malayan Tigers as soon as I arrive, we'll start out with a shot of Connor.

When things quiet down at the tiger enclosure in the mid-morning we generally head over to Cat Canyon to see what the other big cats are up to. Here's one of the Amur Leopards.

Here's a little different view of the same cat.

My friends and I spent some time at the big ponds at the bottom of the canyon later in the day. There are always lots of birds, including the white pelicans.

The Egrets are local birds that fly in and out as they please.

They've figured out that a good time to be there is when the pelicans are being fed . . . and they often snag a fish or two for themselves.

On my way out in the late afternoon I made one more stop to see if Connor the Malayan Tiger was anywhere visible. He was, and I wound up staying there for over an hour. The very late afternoon light on Saturday was great.

One last stop at the Flamingo pool as I headed for the exit.

I spent all day Saturday at the Zoo; on Sunday I didn't get there until around 4:00pm, which is only an hour before closing. I didn't get many pictures, but I did get a great view of Parvatti, the female Fishing Cat, sitting in her little cave. It was really dark, but she was nice enough to hold still for me while I took a few shots.

Click here to see more images from the San Diego Zoo on Saturday and Sunday October 19 & 20, 2013.

      

A Little Different View of an Egret

The other night as I was driving home I noticed the half-moon rising in the sky, and when I saw this egret standing half in a strong shadow on Sunday I got an idea.

    

Up Close With An Amur Leopard

Here are a few images of one of the Amur Leopards up close at the San Diego Zoo, taken Sunday, October 13.

      

Connor (the Malayan Tiger) in Some Really Nice Light

Photographers are (or should be) always paying attention to the light on a scene, not just the quantity, but more importantly, the quality of the light. We caught some particularly good light at the Malayan Tiger enclosure at the San Diego Zoo on Sunday morning. It didn't last very long, but we took advantage of it while we could. Here's a sequence of Connor walking towards me. The time stamps on the images say that this took less than 2 seconds.

Earlier that morning, while it was still overcast, he posed on the edge of the cliff for us.

Connor was out all day on Sunday, instead of the previous half-day shifts. It's going to be a little different around there now, as Danai, the Zoo's older female Malayan Tiger, died last Wednesday. She was a beautiful animal, with lots of character, and she will be missed. Danai would have been 20 years old this month.

Click here to see more of Connor the Malayan Tiger from Sunday, October 13, 2013 at the San Diego Zoo.
     

Birds - San Diego Zoo

Here are some recent bird images from the Friday and Saturday afternoons, October 11 & 12, at the San Diego Zoo. Not all of these birds actually belong to the Zoo, many of them just fly in and take advantage of the plentiful food. In fact, I think that the only ones here that do belong to the Zoo are the Flamingo and the White Pelican. The rest are locals. There are 2 large ponds at the bottom of the canyon below the Tiger Trail, and the late afternoon light is really nice there this time of year.

These egrets are locals.

Same for the blue heron. I heard the other day the the blue heron's beak is very strong, and that they do use if for stabbing. That might explain why when this guy started threatening a much larger pelican it backed down pretty quickly.

And most of the ducks.

The low sun in the late afternoon really intensifies the color of the flamingos.

Here's a close-up of a white pelican.

I actually did get quite a few pictures of the tigers on those 2 days too, but I got even better ones on Sunday, so I'll stop here for now.

Click here to see more from the San Diego Zoo in the afternoon sunlight on October 11 & 12, 2013, including tigers, gharials and more.
     

Fishing Cat and Amur Leopard in the Sun (and some Tigers) - San Diego Zoo

Here are some shots from the weekend of October 5-6 at the San Diego Zoo. First up is Bullet the Fishing Cat. I managed to catch him in the early morning sunlight not long after I arrived.

Here's one of the Amur Leopards, a little later in the afternoon.

It's probably no surprise that I spent most of the day at the Malayan Tiger enclosure. Here's Tiga in a dark area, but you can still see her gold eyes.

She likes to hang out in the pool, especially on a warm day.

Click here to see more images from the San Diego Zoo on Saturday and Sunday, October 5 & 6, 2013.
    

Golden Eyes - Tiga the Tiger

I'm sure I've mentioned before how Tiga, the Malayan Tiger at the San Diego Zoo, has beautiful gold eyes. Here are some recent images from Sunday September 29 that really show them off.

In this next shot Tiga was intently watching to see where the keeper was going to toss her mid-morning snack, a big cow femur bone.

It wound up, intentionally, in a couple feet of water, and Tiga had to go in and get it.

It didn't take her long at all.

Later in the afternoon, after Tiga went in, Danai came out. I didn't get many pictures of her, and she's moving kind of slow these days. She'll be twenty years old this month.

I also managed to get a shot of Bullet the Fishing Cat on my way out on Sunday late afternoon. I've not seen him in a while. This time of year has some of the best late afternoon light for both the tigers and the fishing cats.

Click here to see a few more images of Tiga and Danai, female Malayan Tigers at the San Diego Zoo on September 29, 2013.