Zoo Antics

We took advantage of relatively nice day (i.e. not torrentially raining) and put on our kid faces and took a last trip to the zoo. It was pretty packed, as it should be a on decent summer Sunday, but luckily, we have these fancy membership cards that get us into the back entrance of the zoo! Yea, we're totally VIPs.

There was also a Fringe Festival "show" featuring an enclosure of dancers from Dance Base studios. They had a little tent set-up, and feeding time was at 1. The idea was that they couldn't communicate using words at all, and they followed an interesting set of choreography, explained by the zookeeper (a REAL zookeeper there to give education talks and answer questions!) as behavior patterns seen in wild humans that they are still studying for further interpretation. As all my shots were horrid all day, here's is one of Jonmikel's. I really think the little boy, who was so fascinated by the whole thing, really makes the shot work.

Otherwise, I had to get re-used to my polarizer, and my focus was off all day, so most of my own shots were washed out and blurry. I'm really feeling the limitations of my camera and lens, especially now that Jonmikel has started seriously using raw photos... :-(

But we did arrive at the zoo just in time for mating season on the African Plains and playtime for the baby ringtailed lemurs. The better shots can all be seen here: http://flickr.com/photos/ysnp/

I also wanted to share this fabulous little story of a delightful penguin named Nils Olav who, in fact, has just been knighted by the King of Norway. No kidding. The little guy had bestowed upon him one of the highest honors in the Norwegian kingdom, given a place on the King's Guard, who protect the king himself. Apparently, the Norwegian royalty has some strange obsession with penguins. I wonder if the other penguins are jealous?