Woverine Romp

A wolverine romped in the snow at the Columbus Zoo January 7. I was calling this one Guillotine because she was famous for somersaults, but I learned today that Gui was euthanized in April, 2024. So this must be Alvar (thank you, sister), who seemed to be having a good time.

Somersaults and paper:

I'm still having trouble with autofocus when shooting video:

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

Columbus January 23

I was struck by the shape of the tree on the far side of the lake.

There's food in the fake stump, and the mallards waited for the trumpeter swan to spill some. Because of the snow, I had to overexpose the swan so the ducks would not be underexposed.

Mexican wolf yoga

There is sad news about Hermie (Twitter).

Guillotine the wolverine gnaws an antler.

The trumpeter swan pond, complete with the mallards

A markhor eats snow.

Queen of the rocks!

Funny

 All photos are from the Columbus Zoo.

Alva, a wolverine. You can guess the sex.

A silvered langur performs a scene from Julius Ceasar

Tuna; Barry or Sammi; and Marlin in close formation. They have name tags; Marlin's is red. (African penguins in the Animal Encounters Village)

Marlin, Barry, and Tuna in spread formation.

I first thought Connie was sucking on the fence structure, but there's a feeder there. (Asian elephant)

The good stuff is always at the bottom. (dromedary camels)

Joanie, a black bear

 

2020 part 3

New Hampshire chicken (Columbus Zoo, October 10)

Finally! Someone whose ears are hairier than mine. (Columbus Zoo, October 22)

This is Lucas, an African elephant, walking away from his mother, Renee, who tried to take away his browse. He went through a gap in the fencing to another part of the enclosure and Renee could not follow. (Toledo Zoo, October 24)

northern ground hornbill (Columbus Zoo, November 2)

A young red panda (Columbus Zoo, November 2)

Aurora in her enclosure (Columbus Zoo, December 2)

bald eagle (Columbus Zoo, December 2)

wolverine (Columbus Zoo, December 16). There was a spin on the platform, so this is probably Guillotine.

female rose-breasted grosbeak (Columbus Zoo, December 16)

San Esteban chuckwalla (Columbus Zoo, December 28)

Flips and spins

Guillotine the wolverine (she came from France), of the Columbus Zoo, used to turn somersaults.

Guillotine goes tail over head.

She has since switched to spins.

A sea otter at the Minnesota Zoo turned somersaults while grooming.

The North American river otters at the Toledo Zoo apparently like to entertain the people. I've seen these back flips during multiple visits. (Video has sound.)

In the snow, redux

I'm not happy with my photos of animals in the snow (previous post) because they look flat and dull. So, contrary to my conscience, I fired-up PaintShop Pro. I took the easy route and used the One Step Photo Fix feature. I thought that feature went too far, so I used Smart Photo Fix, which let me make some adjustments manually. Here's what I got for the tiger:

Amur tiger, with (bottom) and without digital enhancement

I prefer the slightly-increased brightness of the enhanced tiger.

Do you see the dividing line in the wolverine photo? Interestingly, the Photo Fix features make dark areas darker in addition to brightening the scene overall. 

Wolverine, with the left half enhanced

I prefer the left half, I think.

On the other hand, I like the unenhanced pronghorn photo because it looks colder. Here's a poor pronghorn, trudging through the snow in search of food or shelter. Will it survive?! Of course it will. It's in a zoo, and there's a shed about 100 feet to the left. Also, it was about 34℉, not 9℉ as I write this.

pronghorn

Have I changed my tune about enhancing photos in software? Not really, if only because it takes a lot of time. I'd rather spend time continuing to learn how to use my camera than learning how to use PaintShop Pro. I could push the One Step Photo Fix button for every photo, but where's the creativity in that?

My understanding of a camera's auto-exposure function is that shooting a snowy scene often yields a picture that is underexposed (too dark) because the camera adjusts for the brightness of the snow to the detriment of the relative darkness of the subject. Reading and backyard experiments tell me I can use my camera's exposure compensation button to get brighter subjects right from the camera. This is a good, small step away from my using auto-everything and toward taking control of the camera.

In the snow

Columbus had a little snow recently, so I went to the zoo Monday to check out the animals I thought would be out. None of these photos would win a prize, but I enjoyed the trip.

pronghorn

Lee, a polar bear. He's brown because of fun in a mulch pile.

A wolverine was quite active when I was there.

A bald eagle, with another in the background

Hermie, a bison

Hermie and the zoo's water tower

Amur (Siberian) tiger