Saturday, September 06, 2008

Camera Critters - 9.6

Finally! I've been waiting a week to post these! Last weekend we took the kids to the zoo.

Ok fine. They really didn't want to go. I did. I have such an obsession with animals that no matter what city we go - we have to go see their zoo (if they have one, of course!). In all honesty, zoos make me sad. I don't like the looks on the animals faces because they look so... well, sad. I hate seeing them caged up, but yet - where else am I going to see them?

Thee demons wanted to go to the big zoo - the MNZoo down by Minneapolis... why? There is a really cute little zoo with a handfull of animals within 1/2 hour from us! There's never a lot of people (fear of crowds, ya know) - I think there were 5 cars in the parking lot Saturday morning? It's a great zoo.. it's advertised as free, and it used to be, but now they ask for a certain amount in a "donation". Whatever - I'm not complaining. All 4 of us got in for $15. I think thats the cost of one ticket at the MNZoo.

I wanted to post these all week, but I was saving them for (my favorite - have I ever said that?) meme - Camera Critters. My favorite animal at the zoo, the tigers, were sleeping and we could barely see them in the shadows, so I didn't get pics of them. Last year when we were here they came right up to the fence. That was amazing!

Anyway.... you didn't come here to read, did you?
First were the prairie dogs. They are so fun to watch. We went right away in the morning, so they were hungry. We put our quarter in the food machine and they all came running - made for some great shots!
As I said, I didn't get to see my tigers, but I did get to see the cougars. I love watching big cats (hence the whole "kittilicious" or "kittyobsessed" screennames I go by). As soon as we walked up to the fence line of this cougar one of the demons blurted out "Great. Now Mom's gonna stand here for a 1/2 hour!".

It would have been worse at the MNZoo, my loves. More cats.
Every zoo has a petting zoo part, doesn't it? This guy was pretty friendly... and really seemed to be interested with the monkey holding the camera.
I guess the downfall of going to the zoo right away in the morning is the animals that sleep in... the big black bear (and he was big!) was sleeping in a corner and all we could see what his butt and his paw. I didn't want a picture of a bear butt (it was kinda cute, though) so I took a picture of his paw instead.
His cubs, however, were enjoying the morning with lots of playing! (The mama bear was in another pen and was totally out of view - she was sleeping, too. But with these cubs, I don't blame her! They were LOUD and obnoxious. That thing he's standing on is probably at least 10 feet high - the 3 cubs would go up and down and up and down and yell at each other.... it was pretty entertaining!

I really wish I could lie and say I got this one in the wild, but if you look close you can see mom's tagged ear in the corner. They have a GORGEOUS area for the whitetailed deer. It took us awhile to find the small herd (a few does, only saw one fawn and never found the buck(s) ) because they were hiding so well. But we finally found them and this little one especially was pretty curious. I didn't realize until we got home how funny of a shot I actually got! My first thought of "this is my feelings about living in a zoo!" - which goes back to my mixed feeling of zoos.