Thursday, April 3, 2014

THE OREGON ZOO! Allie and I had the chance to visit the Oregon Zoo (for half price, with our Minnesota Zoo membership!) while visiting colleges (Reed, Lewis and Clark, Willamette). Maybe because I was super excited to be there, and the bears were our first exhibit, but it was hard to limit the number of American black bear pics!

Bear comfort.

Bear slumber.














Bear mediation.

Bear relaxation.















Bear selfie.

And what you can't show in bear stills, you can definitely show in a video of bears wrestling!

Bald eagles, and Allie in a life-size nest.

A cattle egret.

Stellar sea lion.

Amur leopard.













Rainbow lorikeets...
















and us feeding them.
















Southern gerenuk.














African slender-snouted crocodile.














Hippopotamus.















Lions.

   

The reticulated giraffe exhibit was awesome.

Asian elephants, including baby Lily.

Don't adjust your screens! I did not upload this video in reverse; the polar bear is walking backwards

Phillipine sailfin lizard.

Malayan sun bear.

What a great visit we had!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Although they were anxious to get back to campus, Emma and Carly stopped at the zoo with me, on our way back to Iowa (to at least see the new baby penguins).



Watch the way the baby penguin keeps bobbing up to the surface!

Only made time for the penguins, snow monkeys, and a quick walk through the Minnesota Trail.

 

Our selfie (with the bald eagle).

March 9, 2014
38 degrees (woohoo!)

With the weather so temperate (as evidenced by the multiple crowded parking lots), we started outdoors with the amur tigers.

The sun was so bright, Allie and I had no idea if our selfie had us or the tiger in it! (And maybe mom had thought she had the brightness on her phone turned all the way up, and once again one of her kids was able to give her remedial technological instruction!)

I was trying to get a picture of the frost and snow on this camel's muzzle, but it doesn't show up very well.

I loved that this brown bear looked like he was buried in snow, or peaking out of a snow fort. 

More evidence that the more you go to the zoo, the more you learn. Allie and I had thought that there was only one komodo dragon. When we saw this guy we almost thought it was a different species in the dragon's exhibit. But there are two young komodo dragons!













































It certainly seemed like a lazy Sunday morning for Tia and Bailey. It reminds me of a weekend morning before kids!

This week, not only was the red panda awake, but we got to see his or her drowsy face!







I love noticing all the different ways that the animals get fed at the zoo.



We haven't had a chance to see a fisher up and about for awhile! He seemed unphased by the unhappy kiddo on the Minnesota Trail as he settled back in for a nap.

While the sun brought lots of zoo visitors out, the sun had a different effect on lots of animals -- see a pattern here? Maybe after a zoo visit seeing sleepy animals you could talk about it at bedtime and read a book about animals going to sleep. The favorite at our house was Time for Bed, by Mem Fox. I love the illustrations in that book. You could also sing a song about animals going to bed - like Laurie Berkner's "Goodnight."

It's official, I am obsessed with this snow monkey. At our last visit we noticed her, and maybe one other snow monkey, having patches of hair missing on her head. We're hoping it was the zoo keepers doing something to keep them healthy!

February 23, 2014
19 degrees

The red ruffed lemurs were active and engaging when we arrived.









We don't often stop for a picture of one of the West African dwarf crocodiles, despite how easy they make it.

We were startled by how explosive the tapir's peeing was! Potty humor stays funny to kids for a long time, so it's good for us not to try and ignore bodily functions. If you witness things like this when you're at the zoo, you could follow up by reading Everyone Poops, by Taro Gomi.

We had worried this branch was going to be more of a challenge for this radiated tortoise to get over. Before or after seeing the tortoises, you could read the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aesop's Fables.



Look how far into the ground the snout of this warty pig was!

We had wonderful opportunities to see birds on the Tropics Trail. One of both the Victoria crowned pigeon and the Malayan great argus pheasant were walking right on our path.

 

This owl on on the Minnesota Trail was checking things out.

Allie and I were excited to see the bald eagle out since we have missed her or him on some of the extremely cold days we've had.

On vacations, sometimes we have one photo that we refer to as "the money shot." This shot of the Amur Tiger was the money shot of this zoo visit.

We're still keeping an eye on this pregnant snow monkey. An opportunity for an extension of learning would be looking up the gestational period of the snow monkey. How does that compare to the agouti (that had babies a few weeks ago)?

February 1, 2014
19 degrees








Before hitting the Tropics Trail, we spent some time at the snow monkey exhibit. We're not sure we noticed this seemingly very pregnant snow monkey before.













I loved this shot of the two white-cheeked gibbons together (Tia is the buff colored female; Bailey, the black male).







I hadn't realized that these plants were food for the gibbons.



It's hard to get a good picture of the Matschie's tree kangaroo through the mesh around his exhibit (plus, we don't seem to catch him awake very often), which makes my standard for getting video of him pretty low.








The red panda was awake, but he or she refused to turn around for any of the zoo-goers around us.

Allie and I wondered whether the zookeepers hide snacks for the Visayan warty pigs around the walls of the exhibit.

The baby agoutis we saw last week are getting bigger.

On the Minnesota Trail, we caught this puma itching his face against this tree.

Lots of the animals, like this Canada lynx, were catching naps in the sun.

Today's selfie comes from the Northern Trail. Here are Allie and me with one of the bactrian camels.

We learned today, that our spotting of the brown bear awake last week wasn't rare. The bears are fed every day. It was fun seeing them by the water. In my last post, I thought it'd be fun to make your own version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, by Eric Carle. Reading the original would be appropriate after seeing the bears up and about!