Hogle Zoo

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to Hogle Zoo, and I was soooo excited. I had not been to a zoo of any kind since moving up to the Frozen North (more appropriately called the Torched North right now--if not for the wildfires, I'd be in heaven).

They had a new exhibit called Rocky Shores with a Polar Bear, sea lion, grizzly bear, two otters, and two seals. The seals and otters were hams, but getting clear shots was difficult.

I managed anyway, hee.

I got a shot with both of them. The one in the water had a white underbelly and would swim upside down constantly. I could hardly recognize it right side up.

See?

And the majestic sea lion.

Here are the two otters. One, the male, refused to get in the water to go after the food, and the other, the female, was diving everywhere in the water for it. I guess he didn't want wet fur that day.

Look at him, so cute!

The Rock Shores exhibit also had a couple of crippled bald eagles (they were both missing an entire wing). I heard a child ask their dad why, and he told her that the zoo did it to keep them from flying away. I was promptly irritated--these were plainly rescue birds--and the zoo had other bald eagles quite capable of flying, and they would only clip a wing, not chop it off. Ah well.

 One of four Siamese alligators (as in from Siam, not conjoined twins). The two largest, a male and a female, were named Bill and Hillary. I giggled. This is Bill.

Feeding time, though you can't really see Hillary in the other side of the pool, just Bill here. They were tossing dead rats and other small rodents in.

You can kinda see Hillary here. Both have food in their mouths. I would not want to be near water with one of these guys waiting.

A gray wolf sleeping in the sun. I never saw him move, heh.

This leopard was stalking back and forth--I had a hard time getting a good shot. S/He was beautiful though.

Obligatory giraffe at around 12 feet tall (he was the baby, and shortest one).

We went and saw the bird show, and they had some real beauties. Here is a hawk (I think).

A beautiful barn own. The zookeeper quipped that he didn't know how to describe the beautiful plumage until his granddaughter said, "But Grandpa! It looks like a toasted marshmallow!"

Astute child.

More of the hawk, I think.

I'm going to stop embarrassing myself trying to tell the birds apart, but I think this is a different hawk.

This owl was right behind me and man...I can see why Don Bluth's movies always cast owls as villains (see Secret of Nymh and Rock-A-Doodle). That being said, he was a beautiful bird and had the very best of manners.

I have more photos(tigers!!!), but those are for another blog post. Sorry for the blog silence; I've been swamped by classes and a sudden, active dating life. It's so nice, but so tiring! I've got a rather large backlog of blog posts and things I've done, so please stay tuned!