Photo/s of the Day.

[moonvoice]

Guess Where We Went Today? (ah never mind, I'll tell ya, we went to the zoo!)

PS. I was not using a zoom lens when I was taking a photo of this sumatran tiger, I was using my macro. He came WAY TOO CLOSE to me about 4000 times. Here is one of the less close shots.







Moar tiger.





This was the best photo of the spotted hyena I could get before it disappeared into the ether of 'I'm not visible to the public right now, thanks.'





Rothchild's giraffes make me laff. Look how grumpy the bottom one is! The top one is all like, cute and the bottom one is all 'yarrrr damn these school kids.'





Moar giraffe.





Giraffe in miniature!





Sexy pelican in his breeding plumage. All 'oi, come sex me up!'





Sex me up now!





The otters, Glen's favourite part of the zoo, were very shy. Not only that, but about two million entitled parents kept pushing in front of us even though all we wanted was a couple of photos and to just see them once (the kids were, invariably, almost always, more polite than the parents, seriously). Look, I realise you chose to procreate and have children, but geez, we paid full fare to get in too, y'know? Glen started singing the praises of sterilisation of the masses, and I said if I was a superhero, and had one superpower, it'd be something to do with sterilising others. The otters are cute though!

That said, finally a mother with two young children came and realised we'd been waiting about 10 minutes just to *see* something, and she invited us to stand up next to her kids. We were like 'we love you! Can we take yall home for some lunch?' Nicest. Woman. Ever.





I am actually not particularly enamoured of meerkats.





But Glen is, and they made a show about 'em and stuff. So... here's another.





Southern white rhino. Glen was possessed with this sudden urge to go and pat the rhinoceros, so after I took this photo we hurried away, Glen saying, plaintively, 'but if he decided to charge me, I could get away! And I'm sure he likes being patted!'

Also got to see the amusing sight of a rhino being non-plussed by everything ever, and then startling and running away from a pigeon that flew onto its feed. Pigeons pwn rhinos.





Maaaaaaaate.





Invisible dentist!





We avoided all the primates (cuz we don't like 'em) except for the hamadryas baboons because they were kind of on our way.





This elephant was flirting with me.





Random Australian shelduck that flew into the giraffe's exhibit and sat on a tree. It was awesome.





I can see you just fine. African wild dog.





The African wild dogs are easily my favourite exhibit at the zoo, these days (especially now that they no longer have the fishing cat. Cry). While we were there, they were suddenly possessed by this urge to play and frolic, singing and yipping and making the craziest and most awesome noises, coming by really close, rolling and tumbling, for no other reason than that they could.

















And then they all settled down again. :)





This is my blank face. Old lion, and not in his usual exhibit. This was him looking up from an icy lard treat, with the best blank face ever.





Again looking up from icy lard treat of goodness.





Anyway, I took more photos and maybe one day I'll format them. But it won't be after the hour and a half (!!!) I spent at Centrelink (which blew), and then the two hours at the zoo (which didn't blow). I am now tired and going to bed. Can you believe I have therapy tonight? What a day!

Comments

[jamminbison.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photos! Thanks for sharing :D

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

Hah Glen and the Rhino, sounds like Nic who wants to cuddle a grizzly bear. I'm like 'you know it will take your head off' and she is like 'no! it will like cuddles!'

African painted dogs are awesome. Quite endangered.

Bender does that blank look like that Lion.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I'm like 'sure you can run faster than it's 40 kmh run!' And Glen's like 'but it really won't charge me! Rhinos need love too!'

Yes, quite endangered, they seem quite happy at Perth Zoo at least; unlike the sun bear which was doing that stress running thing at the side of its cage, wearing a furrow into the ground. Uncool Perth Zoo! I hate seeing that mindless pacing.

But the painted dogs were all like 'whee! Let's play! Play some more! Yay! We love life! Wahoo!' It was awesome, actually. And very loud.

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

Yep! Painted dogs seem to do very well in captivity - I've seen them in several zoos now and they always seem quite happy to play etc and very responsive to their keepers.

Poor sun bear. :(

Nic seems to think that grizzlys are like outsized dogs. :O Rhinos are kind of deceptive too - they don't look fast until you actually see them run.

[end-of-the-mind.livejournal.com]

The jaguar at my local zoo does that. He has a trail paced down the log, around the log, down the front of the enclosure, around the tree, back up the log. My heart breaks every time I see the poor beast ;-;

On the other hand, the harpy eagle is now, like 20, and as sassy as ever. He likes his house on top of the people. His aviary has a flyway above the path. He sits and screams at passersby from up there.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Yeah I hate the pacing, it's just a not a happy animal that paces like that. :/

[lupabitch.livejournal.com]

I really love these pics. I need to go to our zoo here--been here three years and never been!

[aleia-kali.livejournal.com]

Love the photos, the tiger is beautiful, thank you for sharing.

[firehauke.livejournal.com]

now i want to go visit our zoo...its been a few years, not since the whole 'family' was together...

[bodylove.livejournal.com]

Wow awesome and expressive photos!

[linstar.livejournal.com]

You saw the tiger!! I haven't see the tiger at all the last few times we have been!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

One of the tigers was sleeping, but the other was awake and pacing, probably because it could smell the lions nextdoor! (They had been shifted there, because of maintenance in their own enclosure).

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

When I saw the tigers at the Mirage a couple years ago, the large male tiger paced very intently, and seemed downright menacing. He seemed very territorial, and definitely didn't like the humans in his space, or that he was trapped in what seemed to be one of the bigger display habitats but nevertheless must have been quite tiny compared to where he spent the rest of his time.

The lions, on the other hand, were quite relaxed about all the humans going by, like "we're social animals, you're social animals, okay whatever."

My understanding is that they spend most of their time in a larger habitat, and trade out a day or two in the small display habitats there, but I don't know exactly how it works.

--Ember--

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Kitties! ^_^

Spent 5 hours or so ambling around the zoo myself on Tuesday. Took many-many pictures, which are still on the camera at a friend's place. =[

Didn't get to see Otters (*sadface*), but did get pictures of the skwerls, Red Pandas and even a couple of the Ghost Bats in the Nocturnal House.

Have to get the friend I went with to post/email me some pics of me and a beautiful Blue&Gold Macaw who was hugely friendly. (And huge!)

Planning on going again next week. *luvs on his Zoo membership!*

[Edited To Add]: And the shelduck was wandering about the Rhino enclosure on Tuesday for some reason. Odd place for a duck to be. o.0

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

We didn't get to see the red pandas (they were sleeping), or the tree kangaroo (also sleeping, in the best pose ever). Didn't even go through the bird exhibit this time, which is a shame, since I love it there.

I hadn't been to the zoo for like three years! Insanity.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

The Red Pandas were sleeping when I was there on Tuesday as well, but they were asleep out on the tree branches and visible, if you were willing to risk a neck crick.

The tree kangaroo I don't recall seeing, but the wallabies and grey kangaroos were out in the sun, relaxing hard. There was one that really needed to be captioned: 'I haz a ded' (Also one on it's back with all four feet in the air. Silly 'roo.)

The bird exhibit is currently very minimal as they are re-doing most of it as a jungle area for the birds, which will rock, I'm sure. There were only some Conures, (3 types of,) the Blue&Gold Maccaws (3 of in two separate cages,) and a couple of Yellow Crowned Amazons.

[ariestess]

That hyena shot is gorgeous! I am in love with the African painted dogs shots. And those 2 shots of the lion? Freaky and kewl!

Actually, all of the shots were pretty damned kewl. I envy your day!

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

*roffle* Stoned lion is stoned.

Some anecdotes from my short stint as a prac student at the zoo.

* I had just cleaned up the Oryx enclosure (back when they had Oryx - these are now at Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo) and had a barrow-ful of poo (they may be antelope, but the poo is like rabbit shit). Memphis, the male rhino stuck his head through the bollards at the back of his pen and lodged his horn under the rim of my wheelbarrow and tried to push it over, the bastard! I was like, "Oh hell no!" and won that battle. A keeper later stated, "Memphis just likes to play. The porblem is that Memphis is a 3 tonne rhino."

* I was sure that the zoo had like, 20 otters. I was quite shocked to find out that they had only 4, or maybe 6, anyway, significantly fewer than I thought. They just run around so much I couldn't keep track. They stink too, because they eat dead fish (and day old chicks).

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

They have a few more otters, I think now, and two separate otter enclosures now. But yeah, it was never very many. They're just so full of movement!

Hee, Memphis.

[feralkiss.livejournal.com]

I love the african wild dogs : ) I was so sad they were all sleeping far away in a corner when I went to the zoo, because they're just so gorgeous running and frolicking together.

Thank you for the upload, I love your photographs!

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

May I save the beautiful, beautiful lion photos to my harddrive for personal use pleeeease?

Edit: And the Tigers!

--Ember--

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Sure! :)

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

Yaaay!

*saves the beautiful pics immediately*

Thank you!

--Ember--

[tigerweave.livejournal.com]

ooooh!

I was looking at those African Wild Dogs thinking "Wow, they are so vivid it is like I can really smell dog!

Then I realised I was literally smelling dog, from taking our two for a run on the beach *grins*

Oh those tigers...

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Then I realised I was literally smelling dog, from taking our two for a run on the beach *grins*

Hehehehe.

[wolftale.livejournal.com]

Amazing pictures :D
Hope I can take picture like that soon too :3

[scarletwildfire.livejournal.com]

Love em. I think my favorite is the 2 giraffe pic. Someday I want to grow up to take pictures as good as Pia can.

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

Your photos are awesome (as usual) and have materially improved my work day. :D

My favorite is probably the hyena, because there are so few good photos of them (i.e. that show them at their best). Also, did you realize that the elderly lion gentleman is going blind? He is. I can't tell you precisely what it is about his face that's telling me this (it's not pupil size, that's response to bright light), but I can promise you his sight is failing. His expression is that of a lion listening intently, and correlating that with what he can see.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Hyena's have had a really unlucky track record at Perth Zoo, deaths and even a batch being poisoned... so to see them there at all was a gift. Usually they're lying down or hiding, since their particularly enclosure very much gives many significant privacy spaces for the animals.

But this one stood for a good minute, and even looked over a little, and I very much enjoyed taking photos. I got another four similar ones, but liked this one the most.

That wouldn't surprise me actually, with the elderly lion. There was a quality to the wideness of his eyes, and also the tilting of his head, that suggested he listened to things quite hard.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Given that the Hyena enclosure is right next to the usual Lion enclosure, I wonder how much their recent and unusual visibility has to do with the Lions currently being way over t'other side of the Zoo?

It was really nice to see them out and about this week.

[anrui-ichido.livejournal.com]

Oh my gods, that lion. LOL! He looks like he is looking up intensely to see if anyone is going to try and steal his icy lard treat. O_O

African Wild Dogs! Eeeee! :D

[xmetanoiax.livejournal.com]

*IN LOVE*.

[earthguardian.livejournal.com]

I have a deep seeded hatred for zoos and water parks - though the latter tends to be more guilty of putting their animals on display like they're toys.

HOWEVER - I am glad you (and other people) get to see incredibly endangered species of African mammals. :D Well, the Tiger is not african, but she is endangered!! <3

LONG LIVE THE KITTIES!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I actually like zoos; water parks less so, but definitely zoos. I'm quite critical of some of the enclosures. The Orang-utans have an amazing encloser, while the sun bears suffer with under-stimulation, and aren't doing so well in a zoo habitat.

Some animals take really well to captive-breeding and conservation in zoos. The African wild dogs, for example. And the rothschild's giraffes, are always breeding. But yeah... it depends on the animal, the enclosure, the stimulation, so many factors.

[erl-queen.livejournal.com]

Great photos! Thanks for posting them.

I agree about the sterilization. Not only would it make my life infinitely better, personally, but it would solve a good portion of the world's problems that all come back to too many damn people on the planet.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Not only would it make my life infinitely better, personally, but it would solve a good portion of the world's problems that all come back to too many damn people on the planet.

Yes! :D

[amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

-squee- thank you for sharing the pictures!!!

~ kidlets

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

My pleasure! :D

[ladytwnks.livejournal.com]

A very long time ago, we drove down to Brownsville, Texas just to go to the zoo. (they have an excellent zoo!). They had a terrific giraffe there who was amusing himself...with his tongue. He'd let it loll out full length then start bobbing his head a bit and spin the tongue around. Then he'd suck it back in like a kid with a strand of spaghetti. Very amusing!

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I really like giraffes in person. They aren't like one of my favourite animals or anything, but in person I think they are awesome.