Zoo Outing

I was planning to skip a blog entry on our visit to the Melbourne Zoo today.  After all, a zoo is pretty much a zoo, at least in any country I have visited.  My children, however, had other ideas and the older three busied themselves taking heaps of pictures "for the blog." James would have gladly contributed his share had his mother complied with his frequent requests to hand over the camera, but alas, she did not.

The highlight by far was seeing the newest member of the zoo's family, a baby elephant so young (3 days) that he does not yet have a name.  The zoo staff were all very proud of him and told us that we were lucky to visit on a very slow day and to be able to spend as long as we liked admiring him.  Yesterday they counted 5,000 visitors in the elephant section alone, and by next week, when the school holidays are in full swing, visitors will be limited to five minute stretches in the elephant enclosure.  Realizing our fortune, we decided to munch our lunch while watching him.  It was hard to get a good picture as he spent most of his time snuggled underneath his mum.

Below is the zoo's other baby elephant, Mali, about six months old:

At the other end of the cuteness scale were the peccaries, but we took lots of photos anyway.  They seemed to notice the lack of attention from other visitors because they came running over to greet us as we approached them.



I was fascinated by all of the uncaged birds out and about, mainly because they are so different from the birds we would see in North America.  They sound as different as they look, and for the most part their pleasing quality of their voices seems to have an inverse relationship to their outward beauty.  I am still working at my bird identification (in other words, I haven't figured out what most of them are, or, if I think I have, it is quite likely that I am dead wrong). Any help here is appreciated.

Purple Swamphen below?:

Katie loved the butterfly house and took many of the following pictures.

 

Cameron took the giraffe and zebra pictures.  We met up with an American/Australian family today, and their delightful six year-old daughter explained to us that "zebra" is pronounced with a short vowel "e" rather than the long vowel.

 The Australian Fur Seals were a big hit in the aquarium.

 A trip through the Australian bush section section was imperative. One problem, at least with the marsupials, is that they are largely nocturnal, and many must be viewed in dark caves in which they are typically sleeping.  The wombat half-opened one eye at us, and with that we had to be satisfied.

Comments

[Deborah]

My favorite picture is the 3rd to last. I can never help but comment on how beautiful your children are and how absolutely happy they always look. Katie looks so mature and positively grown up. Love the pics of all the animals, so kudos to the kids. Brianna will love the butterfly pictures. A few years ago we "raised" butterflies and she was so enthralled she took a zillion pictures and even some video. We still laugh about that! Will email you soon about the skates. It's been a hectic weekend. (Kaylee's birthday!)

[Shanda]

So neat! I love seeing the different animals. We noticed the animal you described for me (for James' cake) in our new book for MFW school.

That baby elephant is so cute.