Another Season of A to Z at the zoo

I went to the zoo on March 8th and I saw;

The apes watching the apes. 
The apes on the other side of the glass were having a lot of fun with some bows of forsythia, unfortunately this was quite entertaining so the adult apes in front of the window stood in the way until the show was over. Turns out I actually need an x-ray camera, super zoom can not see through opaque people. 

Watching the Apes

Bats bowing up beneath broad bright beams

Cute Kangaroos cuddling

Dawdling ducks

An elegant (Steller's Sea) eagle 

A frolicking furry feline (snow leopard)

His tails "soooo fluffy I think I could die"

A gambolling (mountain) goat 

A harmonious homely habitat (for the bears)

I am bear...

A King Just layin' around (I was out of ideas for J!)

Kookaburras sitting quietly

A limber lemur lurking for lunch

A Meerkat musing



A naive Nuttall's Cottontail
A little gentle searching on Google taught me that European and American rabbits are viewed as separate genera and only american rabbits are cottontails. This little guy was entertaining the children whilst the bear walked off to hide out of sight. There was a moat separating the bear and the bunny, so the bunny was safe. 

Ornithological omissions 
(I can't figure out what the birds in the photo are, 
I only know they were in the rainforest building)

A proud Pumbaa pig playing with a package

Quaint quirky Carousel

Ravishing ring-fenced Ramphastos toco

A sunlit scruffy squirrel 

Two temper-torn Toucans (green aracaris)

An uninterested ursus undulating uphill (bye bye bear!)

A (weather) Vane (Okay I know that is torturous)

A white wolf wallowing with forty winks

 A Xerophilic, uncovered and unaquatic, Ungulate 

(again! - these are the most dry-loving hippos ever)
(spot the phrase I was going to use for 'u')

Yellow Discus Fish

Zoo (as you can tell by some of the more tenuous 
references it almost killed me getting this far!)

OK so I did get one half decent gorilla image

Seeing Spring through a Different Lense

Magnolia flowers in Freeway Park

I just got a new camera so for the last two weekends I've been enjoying walking around and taking photos of spring. My new camera has a 30x optical zoom which I'm looking forward to trying out at the zoo. It also has a manual focus so I can focus on what I want to instead of what is in the middle of the shot. I've also been playing with the aperture size so I can change the depth of field of the photos and make the background of my shots more or less fuzzy. I realise lots of people are happy phone photographers but my phone isn't that great. 

Spring is slowly winding it's way along the branches of the trees here in Seattle; we have had a lot of sunny days even at the weekend! So I've been out and about photogrphing the new season.

Cherry blossom

Bird in Tree taken with my superzoom

Magnolia pre-bloom

I'm not even sure what this is but isn't it amazing!

Volunteer park

In the conservatory at Volunteer Park

A desert inside temperate trees outside 

Japonica

Space Needle in the Sun

More blossom

Backlit blossom

Crow in Tree

Boat on Lake Washington

Pussy willow

more pollen-full Pussy Willow

I spotted this eagle perched like a piece of old rag caught in a tree.
No-one else seemed to see him or care. 

Ducks on Lake Washington. These two refused to pose for the camera at the same time, one of them was always preening whilst the other posed. 

If you look carefully you can see Mt. Rainier on the skyline. 

A sunny day at the park

Seed pods hanging on from last year

More beautiful pink blossom on a blue sky