LONGEST ZOO BLOG EVER!

So last Saturday, we cracked out the stroller and took Master Baby for her first zoo trip. As usual, I make no pretense of having any background in biology, or even the remedial mental skills sufficient to read and remember anything from the signs, so I do not know the scientific or common names of half of these animals. Sue me. We stuck to the Australia exhibit, which is good, since I took far too many pictures as it was.

First up, a monkey. They swapped these guys out for the red pandas, who apparently occupy the outdoor exhibit in winter (assumedly due to their fur).



And beholding the monkey, is yet another little monkey (to say nothing of the shaved ape behind the camera).



The red panda, back indoors.



I call them toucans, you call them hornbills. We can compromise on "funny looking birds".



The binturong was kind enough to raise his head and acknowledge us, his greatest of great fans.



A great lot of kangaroo photos in this blog. Something about the overgrown field, they just looked very photogenic out there!



A pair of kangaroos had been on the opposite side of the pond and decided to move back over with the main group. Here they are on their way, stopping to look back:



One of my favorite shots, the camera managed to catch this one in mid-hop as it galloped/ran/hopped/etc. across the field towards the main group.



A bit fuzzy, but I liked the layout of this shot, with the kangaroo proceeding in towards the group in the background.



A pair of outliers:



Again, looking back at the weird human family:



...and bounding back in to join the group.



Now this was a lucky shot! Loud little bird it was, too.



This fellow reminds me distinctly of my budgerigar, Edmund (later Edwina following a gender confirmation).



The happy seagull family, there as always. Left to right, grousing mother-in-law, combative wife, and hen-pecked husband.



A pic of that earlier noisy bird with headgear in a slightly more modest positioning.



And the profile...



This seagull has rather piercing eyes.



Another weird bird. I'm sounding rather like Karl Pilkington.



One more weird bird.



And lastly a whole collection of weird birds on a stick nest. Weird, innut? [ceasing the Karl Pilkington voice now]



I took a whole bunch of photos of this next kangaroo, who was very sociable and stood right up next to the path.



I'm going to run out of captions.



A moose once bit my sister...



Mind you, moose bites can be pretty nasty...



Last one of this fellow:



Got some of my better pictures of the wallabies this time, which are decidedly NOT social and tend to congregate at the very back of their pen. Note the young one on the left.



Mother and baby here...the baby is quite cute (an old enough marsupial to not look like a cocktail shrimp, thank goodness).



I particularly liked this shot because of the way the trees perfectly wreathed the kangaroo mob.



Closer up from that same angle:



And one more shot before Baby decides to take us home.



On the way out, saying hello to the walking slab of BBQ: