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!