NaBloPoMo Day 2: The Zoo!

Ya see how I did that? It rhymes.

My mom, Aaron and I went to the zoo last Saturday. It ended up being really hot (what the heck? It was the end of October and well over 90!) and kinda crowded, but we had fun anyway! Aaron, of course, brought the camera.

There was a new giraffe born at the zoo sometime this year, but either he wasn't in there or baby giraffes start looking like adult giraffes pretty quickly, because we couldn't figure out which one he was. Oh well. Baby or no, they were awesome! I love how their necks are so skinny that they kind of disappear when you're looking at them head on. It's amazing they can keep their heads up in a stiff breeze.

This vulture guy was in the giraffe exhibit and had just finished taking a bath. He was a smidge bedraggled and kept flapping around trying to dry off. He's missing part of his left wing, which made the whole thing a little less graceful than he was probably aiming for. We did our best not to laugh at his misfortunes.

We went to watch the elephant feeding and saw this guy. His little hole is right outside the edge of the elephant enclosure and he was just as enraptured by the feeding as everyone else was. Even when people were throwing carrots at him (they hand out carrots for the little kids to throw to the elephants, but most of them can't throw that far and they end up closer to the squirrel than the elephants). He was a brave little guy.

Also, pretty much any time in my life that I've gone to the zoo, there have been tons of squirrels. Usually pretty brave ones that don't run away when you inch closer. And, almost without fail, the little kids are more excited about the squirrel than the elephant/rhino/zebra in the enclosure.

This is Sheena. She weighs 7000 pounds, is 36 years old, and I threw her a carrot (they had enough carrots for some grown ups to throw too. Mine even made it all the way into the enclosure, something not many of the carrot-throwers could say). She's quite hairy, which is a sign of a healthy elephant.


This little girl was probably the best part of the visit. I'm not sure when Aaron and I last went to the zoo, but she was a teeny tiny newborn then and her mama was being super shy about showing her off. We got only the barest glimpses of baby orangutan hair sticking out from mom's arms. This time, she was a swinging toddler. She used her mom as a jungle gym and threw food and somersaulted around. It was great! I really hope that, when Wes is born, he has hair that sticks up like that.

We were standing around admiring the cuteness of these cotton-top tamarins when the (super active) golden lion tamarins next door knocked down a rather large branch inside their cage. It made a rather loud clattering noise (I didn't think it was THAT bad) but these guys ran over to the side of the cage facing their neighbor and very loudly chirped their displeasure at having been disturbed. This chirping went on for a good 5 minutes while we were standing there and was still going strong when we left. I don't think they get along very well. You can just seen the tamarin in this pic giving the golden tamarins the stink-eye.

The wallaby walkabout at the zoo actually puts you quite close to the wallabies. You walk on a little roped off trail through their enclosure. For the most part, they hang out kinda far from the trail since that's where the screechy grabby kids and stupid adults who want to harass them are. Not this guy. He was RIGHT by the trail, sitting rather awkwardly, falling asleep. I could have reached out and touched his nose (but I didn't because I'm all responsible like that).

This is Notch, my hippo-stand in. She and the other Phoenix Zoo rhino, Half-Ear are white rhinos. I always kind of wondered why they were called white rhinos and, according to the sign outside their enclosure, they were originally "weit" rhinos. Weit is a ... something (Swahili?) word for "wide". White rhinos have the widest mouths of all the rhinos. When the white man came along he misunderstood and changed weit to white and now we have slightly misnamed rhinos running around.

I didn't resize this picture so, if you want, you can click to enlarge and see the little notch in her left ear that got her the name Notch. Half-Ear was missing half her right ear. It looked a little odd.

Unfortunately, the day I chose to visit the zoo was the weekend of "Boo at the Zoo" where you can take your kids in costume and wander around and bla bla bla. There are games and parades and stuff, but, as it turns out, the costumes make some of the animals nervous so they were either off display or had their displays closed down, including my favorite part, the monkey exhibit where you can walk around inside their enclosure and they swing all around you and chirp and are generally really cute and precious. Note to self: only go to Boo at the Zoo if I have a kid who wants to be there. We didn't care much about the parade or games but we DID care about the missing animals, so that was kind of unfortunate timing on my part.

That's about it...we actually have quite a few more pictures, including some decent lion pics but I'm still feeling a little under the weather and don't want to stare at my computer anymore. Let's just say the zoo is awesome and when Wes is born we'll become card-carrying members of the Phoenix Zoo so we can go whenever we want and hopefully he'll enjoy it as much as I do!