The Zoo

...(and other highpoint Scrabble words)

Installment 2 of "so you wanna drive to Texas for a vacation - have you had your head examined?" series.
Today's topic regards the trip Da Wife and I took to the Fort Worth Zoo.
I've always liked the entrance.

Who wouldn't want to be guarded by attack Rhinos?!

On first going in, we opted for the primate house. It seems as though Da Wife met up with a distant relative of some sort. They even snack the same way...

I'm just glad she doesn't have snacks like the male in that enclosure. The big silver back was up top, and he had certainly seemed to have enough of all the visitors that were tapping the glass and making faces at him, so once a big crowd was gathered, he took a "fresh sample" and took a big bite. The screams of horror from the crowd seemed to fill him with gruff satisfaction as he turned away to lumber off. I was amused.

After the primate house you tour around a boardwalk that has a variety of other displays. None of those pictures came out well and honestly it was a tad cold out for many of the animals. I did however try for a JamesF "art" photo, when I came across these berries.

Not exactly as I had seen them in my mind, but close enough. The contrast and placement in real life was much better (and my 'shop skillz are only so-so). The humor behind this bit is, as I was taking the pic, several people stopped and kept staring into the shrub trying to spot the "animal" I was busily shooting. I eventually stopped and told them I was just taking pictures of the plant...

After the boardwalk ended, we strolled through flamingo alley. It's a nice (smallish) enclosure with two sides. The southside flamingos are below...

All that plush pink plumage, too bad they don't taste like pink chicken.
Here's one of their neighbors from northside:

He seems like he's not getting enough sun. But I guess if they were tan, they'd have a different name then wouldn't they?

From there we headed over to the Elephants and the Asian Falls area.

most of the elephants and hippos refused to offer a good angle for a shot, but the hippo was funny chasing a ball around the pool. Across from them, we watched the giraffes for a bit.

and between the giraffes and us was a large pond filled with coi.

(I did later see a boy cranking, shaking, and generally abusing the fish food machine to eke out a pellet or 3, all while the parents looked on passively. No blog o'scorn on this today, but it bothered me all the same. I'm not talking shaking it a little, I mean I thought he would pull the box out of its housing at one point, or rip the handle off... *sigh*)
***And now back to your regularly scheduled program!

As we wandered around the falls, an area they carved out of a hillside that's got some lovely exhibits, we came across this aptly named sunbear catching the last rays of the day.

I was really lucky on that shot, as soon after taking it, the bear rolled over and headed to dinner.

We moved on the reptile house, and saw this brightly colored tomato frog nestled in the rocks.


A little later we caught a fraternity prank in progress.

I swear they were trying to moon everyone...

Traveling by the "Outback" exhibits, I caught this gang, lallygagging about.

There was also a LARGE joey "How you doin'?" (no not really that Joey), taking what had to be his LAST drink from mom... that or he left his favorite action figure in his room and was looking for it.

We moved on to a Texas Wild area that had all kinds of fun shots (most of which didn't come out quite right). And I'm not sure if it was annual review time, and this guy was trying to get a big raise or what, but I hope he gets a good merit increase!


Then we were ATTACKED!
I did all I could to save us from a large, angry, and ferocious (and brass) croc!

"Awww... ain't she a beaut?! Right... so I'm jus gonna go over there, and jump on his back!"

We wandered the rest of the way through the swamp/wetlands exhibits, and then headed on our way back out. We passed a pleasant little waterfall area that I wanted to get a shot of. (I like waterfalls apparently, since I got married at them AND honeymooned near them. Who knew?)


Several of the larger areas (like a giant walk through aviary) were closed due to renovations at the zoo, and it looks like they have 2 HUGE projects going on there. I'd like to see it when they're done, and perhaps when it is warmer and more critters are out and about.

Stay tuned for the next story: "Christmas and the cattle drive"