Flamingo Friday: A Novel Pose

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s…

This story was told to me by my visiting goddessmother, who overheard the following exchange as she walked through the zoo:

A boy reading a plaque by the primates exclaimed, “Look, Dad, it’s a white-faced gibbon!”

“That’s not a gibb-on,” the father corrected. “It’s a gah-BAHN.”

And thus is another generation warped by misinformation.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Flamingo Friday: Sly Birds

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Why I Like the Zoo’s Sulawesi Macaques

They always appear to be either annoyed:

…Or suspicious:

What more can you ask for in an intelligent species?

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Let’s Go Over This Again, Shall We?

There’s no denying that tigers are impressive, majestic, and quite beautiful creatures—and there are times when you even can find them doing something kind of cute, like playing with a metal keg:

However, even under such circumstances, it’s important to remember:

They are not “cute”;

They are not “kitties”;

They are scary.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Wild Wildlife: How to Distinguish a Naturalist from a Normal Person

Leaving the house, they:

A. Assess the temperature and decide whether they need a jacket.

B. Pause to chat with a neighbor.

C. Stop to photograph an interesting fungus that has sprouted up near a neighbor’s front steps.

When entering Rock Creek Park, they:

A. Bike or jog along the trail, pleased to be able to exercise outside.

B. Stroll along the trail, enjoying bird-calls and the play of light on leaves.

C. Identify types of trees and wish they’d brought their Sibley’s guide to better determine the species of a particularly tricky oak.

[note: the tree pictured is a beech,
not an oak, tricky or otherwise]

Upon seeing a heron, they:

A. Glance at it but keep moving.

B. Stop for a minute to admire it.

C. Stand stock-still for a good 15 minutes, trying to get a good picture of it plunging its head into the water as it catches fish.

Encountering a wide tree-stump covered with moss about 10 feet from the path, they:

A. Pass it without a second thought.

B. Think, “What a pretty stump.”

C. Tramp over to the stump to investigate and then spend another 10-15 minutes kneeling against decaying bark in order to take pictures of a group of ants maneuvering a dead worm over a leaf.

I think we can dispense with an answer key, don’t you?

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Flamingo Friday: Hue and Saturation

***

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Prehensile: or, If I Only Had a Trunk

The zoo’s prehensile-tailed porcupine can—as its name suggests—direct the movements of its tail with great finesse and control; it can even wrap its tail around branches and grip them. I’m not sure that it can suspend itself from anything by its tail—as some monkeys with prehensile tails can—but then, it might just prefer to do that sort of thing when there’s no one watching.

That’s pretty cool, I admit. But when it comes to prehensility, no matter how well a tail can curve and curl and cling, nothing is as magnificent a manipulator as an elephant’s trunk.

The elephants wield their impressive elongated noses with such panache that it often prompts—not just me—but various other zoo visitors (usually my friends and relatives) to echo Virginia Woolf and express a desire for a trunk of one’s own.

I don’t know that I’d want to have a trunk all the time, since it might get in the way on the bus or when drinking out of champagne flutes—but it might be fun to have for a day.

Since I suspect that by this point in the post you, readers, have either given up in bafflement at my weirdness or have been imagining just what you would do with a trunk of your own, I won’t bother to discuss the matter further; instead, I present to you a brief photo-essay on the fun to be had with trunks:

[monastic self-flagellation with bamboo]

[bucket-coiling]

[hours of fun with
brushes on sticks]

[getting at that itchy eye]

[becoming one with a tree's trunk]

And finally...

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Zoo Encounters

I’ve always considered the Stanley cranes the most affable of the zoo’s outdoor birds, with their slightly chubby, cheerful-looking faces and large mild eyes.

[really, how much more benign
can you get?]

When they were moved to a different enclosure this summer and given a “Caution: Aggressive Cranes” sign, I thought it was just so they’d complement their neighbors, the much scarier wattled cranes:

It was only today that I began to revise my opinion, when all of a sudden the Stanley cranes stood erect, their wide eyes turning sharp and alert, and uttered a loud, ululating cry—possibly directed at the zoo visitors.

I really don’t know what the call was all about, but Annie and I weren’t the only ones to be surprised—and somewhat alarmed—by it: a woman with another group of visitors backed away from the fence, observing, “That’s some Jurassic Park shit!”

[not a crane, a cassowary;
but pretty Jurassic Park-y]

(My second favorite animal observation of the day came from Annie, who, when watching the prairie dogs, expressed a desire not just to pet one but to “wear one on my shoulder, like a combination parrot and hamster.” I had never thought about that before, but now it’s unlikely that I’ll ever pass the prairie dog exhibit without having a vision of that occurrence coming to pass.)

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Flamingo Friday: It’s Just So FLUFFY—!

[best viewed large]

A friend of our back in Boston was justifying her desire to always cuddle their cat, Pepper (who did not like to be cuddled): “She’s just so fluffy!”

“Yes,” her partner said seriously, “But she’s not fluffy for you.”

I had forgotten about ever having taken this photo (it’s from January), but when I saw it I remembered how excited I’d been, not just by the colors of this flamingo, but by its incredible textures—especially all the down-y-ness of its underfeathers, just visible as its plunged its beak into all that softness to preen.

It’s not fluffy for me, either, but if I can’t cuddle it, I can at least look at it—and so can you.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Another Caption Challenge (#3)

[For further information, see this post]

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Everybody Needs a Rest on Labor Day

Just as I was heading out to the zoo this afternoon, a dragonfly alighted on the railing of our apartment building. Since I had my camera at hand, I took several photos of it. Little did I know that those would be the only pictures I took today…

I had only gotten to the Great Cats exhibit and was alternately watching the tiger pace and making a mental list of the Individuals Most Likely To Be Selected Against (evolutionarily, that is: they’re the ones that roar back at the tiger) when the already ominous sky grew black, and the first drops of rain began to fall—so I rushed back home, hunched shrimplike over my camera bag. I was disappointed to miss most of the zoo, but since I only captured a few images, I’m glad they were of a subject so entirely appropriate to Labor Day.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Flamingo Friday: Fog and Flame

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}