A Day at the Zoo

I try to make it a point to go to the zoo at least once every year. This summer I went to the National Zoo located Washington, DC here. Animals are fascinating to me! One of my absolute favorite places to start is the Asia Trail. It holds a lot of the must see animals in my book. I have never seen a Red Panda and it’s now on my favorites list. The coloring of this particular one was so vibrant and plush. The Giant Pandas were outside frolicking about, up and down the hills, and around their jungle gym. This was my first time seeing them outside. Normally their inside napping so this was a real treat. Onto another one of my loves, animals with prints! Zebra stripes are probably my favorite with Tiger stripes following closely behind. They have such striking beauty. I like giraffe prints as well but this zoo doesn’t have a giraffe exhibit.

There was one animal who appeared exhausted. Unfortunately, I had no clue what it was. It was only about 10:00 in the morning, but maybe he had a rough night and decided to sprawl out for a bit to recover. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was pretty hot outside.

There was this awesome sculpture garden by the Great Ape exhibit. Wonderful place to stop and snap a few shots! Sometimes I have to tell myself to stop and read the information they offer about the animals instead of just photographing them. I learned that flamingos get their coloring from what they eat. I had no idea, I figured they were born into the world with their radiant pink coloring. Another special something this zoo had to offer while I was there was hearts. I saw several of them throughout, but was only able to photograph a few. I love hearts of all kinds!

The bird cage is another must see on my list. Peacocks are my favorite bird! Their coloring is mesmerizing! If you know anything about peacocks, you know the males are the ones with those fabulous spreads. The females known as peahens have a few colors and no spread. This year they were outside along with a few more on the inside exhibit. That’s where all the excitement happened. We were just in time to experience…wait for it…PEACOCK PORN! I’m going to leave it at that. Let’s just say I’m glad us humans don’t go about it in the same manner. See a few of the peacock pictures I’ve taken over the years on my “Peacock Beauty” blog here. After the peacock show, I saw a variety of other birds to include a Macaw who kept saying “see you”. According to the person working the exhibit, it meant he was tired of us and that was his way of telling us to go away. I would imagine being around that amount of people all day would make me feel the same way.

All the animals came out to be photographed that day….well at least that’s the way I saw it…Lol!

Side Note: I have no clue why that bird looks so worried…I did nothing to him…I promise!

Click on the pictures to enlarge them…