Columbus May 28

I went with family members on an after-hours tour of the Columbus Zoo.

A moose, the largest deer, can fold itself pretty compactly.

A puma, probably Goldie or Poppy, one of three orphaned because of fires in California in 2020.

A pallas' cat, or manul, pauses during scratching.

A markhor makes a leap.

Splooting, red panda style

Katy, a koala mom

Katy and Kora

Columbus May 15

Lee, I think.

One of three pumas

Guillotine (Facebook), a female wolverine

black-capped chickadee

Northern bald ibis. Looks like a vulture, dunnit?

The whole bird

Chinese hwamei

hwamei in a flowering bush

western cattle egret

western cattle egret

It's not the toy.

It's the box it came in.

African lion (Columbus Zoo)

black ratsnake (Columbus Zoo)

African grey parrot (Columbus Zoo)

meerkat (Toledo Zoo)

puma (Toledo Zoo)

dromedary camels (Columbus Zoo)

The meerkat and puma were after food. Parrots seem to enjoy tearing things up.

2020 part 2

More from 2020.

male mallard (Whetstone Park, June 1). For some reason, there was a large gap between zoo visits, so I filled-in with a park visit.

brown bear (Minnesota Zoo, August 14)

black-tailed prairie dog (Minnesota Zoo, August 14). Like this prairie dog, my backyard chipmunks and ground hogs often have flying bugs on them. Is it because living underground leaves something interesting on their fur?

puma (Columbus Zoo, August 24)

Clover, as seen under Hermie (Columbus Zoo, August 24)

(Akron Zoo, September 11)

Pesquet's parrot (Toledo Zoo, September 26)

Bourke's parakeet (Toledo Zoo, Septermber 26). This is the species that was interested in my shoe.

Minnesota Zoo

In December I was able to add the Minnesota Zoo to the short list of zoos I've visited while carrying a camera. The entrance is indoors, so I stayed indoors for seal training and a visit to the unexpectedly large tropical building. I was most interested in the cold-weather animals, but the camera's lens would fog if I'd gone from outside to the tropics.

I had only two hours but went to the monk seal training because it began five minutes after I arrived. It was interesting enough, but I should have skipped it. I couldn't bring myself to sail through the tropical building, so I didn't have as much time outside as I intended. In other words, I didn't focus on my goal 😐

moose

Asian wild (Przewalski’s) horse

Sadie, one of three brown bears, seemed to be snoozing until a keeper arrived. He gave me a heads-up before he called to her, and I caught her just after she looked up. (Dang smudged glass.)

brown bear

An Amur tiger was walking along a fence, apparently following a keeper who was outside. The tiger stopped, but the keeper continued to the tiger building and then called the tiger. The tiger ran around the viewing deck toward the building, and I caught it heading down the slope. (I should've applied a little more exposure compensation to brighten the tiger.)

Amur tiger

Sichuan takin

fisher

bactrian camels

coyote

Two pumas share a rocky exhibit and there was quite a bit of climbing and chasing. (Crummy focus but great action.)

puma (cougar)

The adult lynx posed nicely. There was also at least one juvenile in the exhibit.

Canada lynx