For Valentine's Day...

...Some atrocious puns just for you!

I like lion around with you.



You belong to my hart.



I udderly adore you.



Llama give you a kiss.



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One Good Shot - for A.S.C.

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Just One Shot: Enter the Work-Week

If for you, as for me, this is your first day back in a while--well, you might identify with this young lion.

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Bella Gad, in Memory

Bella Gad was my grandmother’s cousin (or at least that’s as close as I’ll get to being precise about family relationships). This isn’t the place in which to paint a portrait of her even if I thought I could. I will say, though, that Bella was a mixture of extremely strong—even when baseless—opinions, great humor, and tremendous affection. She also had a very good eye and an excellent artistic sense, and I was always very flattered that she was such an enthusiastic supporter of my photography—not just the photos of animals looking winsome, but those in which I tried to frame things differently, to focus on form or abstraction or try a new perspective.

Bella lived in Israel and, although she spoke several languages, didn’t speak English; she and I wrote to each other in mutually half-forgotten French, resorting regularly to the dictionary. Several times a year, I would send her an “album,” a collection of my photos with brief captions in my scant French.

I was only starting to think about which photos I would include in an album this fall when I learned that she had died last week. These are some of the photos I would have included in that album. I wish she could see them.

Tu me manques, Bella.

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Waterworks

A couple of months ago, when the lion cubs were smaller, they evinced a fascination in, and fear of, the moat of water surrounding their enclosure. They would watch their parents drink, would even drink themselves—but there always seemed to be an element of uncertainty or discomfort involved.

One day, one of their mothers became captivated by the desire to play with (or at least acquire) a big, hollow-plastic ball; unfortunately, this ball was floating tauntingly in the moat, at a distance that—she discovered after much effort—was just out of reach.

If I was entertained by this demonstration of grimly determined frivolity on the part of the lioness, you can imagine how much more surprised and interested her offspring were in her behavior.

They alternated between watching her efforts with great interest…

And watching the water with great suspicion.

Eventually, the lioness gave up and lay down with the unruffled dignity of a sphinx; looking at her, you’d never know that mere moments ago she had been batting excitedly at the air.

I’m not sure what impression the incident made on the cubs, but I doubt it was a lasting one; their focus soon shifted to other things.

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Glamour Shot

Judging by the incipient mane on this model-to-be, I think this is one of the three male lion cubs practicing his pose.

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Lions and Tigers and Bears

But mainly bears. It was painfully hot this past long weekend, so my intended brisk afternoon walk through the zoo became a painful stumbling crawl through the areas nearest to the entrance, which means I saw some alpacas busily browsing, the monkeys and spoonbills munching on snacks, and the spectacled bear cubs, who are pretty huge by now but are still pretty darn cute—at least to me.


And that got me thinking. The lion cubs were cute, too, and even now that they’re so big and adult-looking, they have a certain charm. But even when the lion cubs were very little, it was clear they were lions—big scary predators full of snarls and hunger and teeth.

The bears, on the other hand… They just seem so much cuddlier than the lions. It’s not that I don’t think they could crush my head or anything—and, in fact, one of the cubs was gnawing on a bone when I arrived at their enclosure—but still, it was gnawing in a cute way!


This isn’t my reaction to all bears, mind you—polar bears and grizzlies scare the hell out of me. So what is it about these guys that seems so—if not harmless—then unthreatening?

I think it has to be the absence of what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call predatory intensity. Maybe it’s because these bears are omnivores rather than carnivores that they’ve lost that hunter’s focus: the tight grip on the bone, the sharp, electric gaze that follows whatever can be perceived as prey.


These guys were missing that the whole time I watched them, whether they were gnawing on bones or trundling over to sniff the handfuls of fruit and veggies that a keeper tossed them from on high like favors thrown from a Mardi Gras float (but with less panache).


There’s a nonchalance about these bears that’s nothing like the piercing intensity of lions’ attention or the chilling, slightly psychotic glare of tigers.

Instead, they go after a piece of pear, or climb into a mulberry tree to satisfy their sweet tooth, or get distracted by whatever’s around them.

I’m not saying I’d jump in the exhibit and try to pet them, but, let's face it: no creature that stops and smells the daisies is going to win the Intimidating Animal Award. The Endearing Animal Award, on the other hand...

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One Good Shot: Your Gaze Is Preying on Me

The lion cubs aren’t so little anymore—in fact, they’re kind of huge—and the buffoonish antics of their semi-coordinated childhood are giving way to the lithe movements of growing predators. This is not to say that they don’t still tumble over each other from time to time, but now their growls over bones are more serious warnings than excuses to jump on each other. And when this cub heard something—a bird, a chipmunk, a child’s squeal? Who knows—and looked up from its food, I was pretty certain that it was still thinking in terms of meals, be they pre-prepared or still in motion.

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Fatherhood (Finally) Agrees with Him

Luke the lion has not always seemed particularly excited about his cubs, but in the past few weeks he’s become much more tolerant of their high jinks, allowing them to stalk him, pounce on him, and gnaw on him—and even appearing to enjoy it.



Has he just matured along with his offspring, or is he relying on some sort of father’s little helper to get him through…?



Just to let you know, I will be out of the country until April 25th, so whatever posts appear (having been scheduled in advance) may be a little light on text, and I certainly won't be able to respond to comments. If you're longing for more Beasts in a Populous City-ness, then take the caption contest, and encourage your friends to do the same! It will provide you with hours of entertainment and distract you from the aching void created by my absence from this website.

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Two Good Shots: Portraits of a Lioness

One Good Shot: Satisfaction

It’s been a good week for me, generally and in terms of zoo shots, so I thought I’d share some of that pleasure via one of those images:

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Sibling Rivalry: I Eat Your Head

Watching the lion cubs pounce on each other, I asked a friend of mine if this reminded her at all of her childhood with her sister; she said it was quite familiar.

Between that confirmation and the tales Annie tells me of pinning down her younger brothers and sister and tickling them mercilessly, I am fully convinced that I didn’t miss a whole lot, having not had a sibling until I was in college--or, rather, that I don't mind having missed a whole lot.

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Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

The Academy Awards are on tonight, and to celebrate I thought I’d post photos in honor of some of the nominees:

Winter’s Bone:


The Fighter:


(The flamingo in the lower-right corner is Amy Adams.)

The Kids Are All Right:



127 Hours:


(If Aron Ralston had been a starfish like this one, he wouldn’t have worried so much about having to lose an arm—not just because he’d still have so many more, but because the arm would regenerate, as would a new body from the severed arm.)

The Social Network:


Who needs Facebook when you're in each other's faces?

True Grit (or at least true dirt):


...this lion cub has just seen Inception:


…And finally, a movie that wasn’t nominated but should have been, Get Low:


There’s a certain resemblance to Robert Duvall, wouldn’t you say?

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