tcastleb: (Vulture)
( Apr. 29th, 2009 06:06 pm)
Okay, it's been a while. Zoo's been crowded 'cause of spring break and I was out of town last week, sooo . . .

Went today with a friend from work and his friend and walked around almost the whole zoo.

Peacock

And it's starting to be baby season. Meet the newest giraffe, only two weeks old.

Giraffe and two-week-old baby

And here's a young yellow-backed duiker.

Baby yellow-backed duiker

And two baby sun bears (up in the tree limbs on the left) which are only the third and fourth sun bears ever to be born in captivity. SD Zoo had #2, also.

Sun bears

And just 'cause this Cuban iguana is one of my favorites to photograph:

Cuban iguana

But the pic of the day lies beneath the cut.

Cut for the squeamish; snake eating dinner. )
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tcastleb: (Vulture)
( Apr. 1st, 2009 06:13 pm)
It's been a while. Haven't gone to the zoo in a couple weeks. But, anyways, I got to see the tiger cubs, who are now eleven months old. And their keeper was out chatting with visitors, so I learned cool stuff (and sad stuff) like there used to be nine subspecies of tigers, but now there are six, and the zoo has Malayan tigers, and they don't expect there to be any more wild tigers in 20-25 years. The male is a valuable breeder, and one of the females (the second has been fixed) is in heat again and is tired of her cubs becaue three is too many. And mating is, er, rather violent between the big cats. She likes to back into a corner so he can't jump off and get away when he's done. Nice kitties.

Anyway. Cubs! Two girls and a boy. The boy's name is Menderu. He's bigger than the others, but I still can't tell them apart.

DSC_0015

Tigers

And a close up.

stripes close up

And meet one of the zoo's two new resident sloth bears. I don't remember his name. But he totally enjoyed hanging out in the tub playing with his stick.

sloth bear
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Hightlights of the day included seeing the flamingos get fed. Okay, well, not terribly exciting, just funny watching the flock follow the keeper around the pen. And listening to two very knowledgeable keepers in the bug house talking about how this one bird-eating tarantula doesn't actually eat birds (it got its name because the guy who named it saw it with a bird, but it's too heavy to actually go after them on purpose) and has dangerous hairs; if you get one in your eye, it'll be swollen shut for two weeks. If you get some in your nose and throat--bad news, dude. And they have five layers of mesh in the cage to protect the keepers from it. I kept trying to think of a nifty SF story or something to use that in.

Anyway. On to slightly less dangerous critters. These are, um, African short-nosed crocs, I think.

Crocodile

lizards and snakes and pythons, oh my! )
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tcastleb: (Vulture)
( Jan. 9th, 2009 06:09 pm)
Went to the zoo the other day. Got to see a zookeeper and a vet trimming the beaks on the Galapagos tortoises. The zookeeper would scratch the tortoise's neck to get his head out and the vet had a dremel (sp?) to sand down the beak. Pretty nifty. Mr. 100-year-old tortoise didn't like it much though.

Saw this nifty frog. I think he's new. I don't remember what kind he is though.

Frog

And, hey, look, a lizard! This is an iguana. A Cuban iguana, I think. Through the mesh of his exhibit.

Cuban iguana

And this is a spiny-tailed lizard. I think he's fairly new too. I should know these critters by now.

Spiny-tailed lizard
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. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Twelve handsome oryx/gemsbok,



(Went to the Wild Animal Park" tonight and got to ride the tour bus at night and see the critters. Got to see a few gemsbok right up next to the fence, including a year-old juvenile who was very cute. This pic is from earlier this year though.)

Eleven )

And thus concludes the 2008 12 days of zoopics. Thanks for stopping by and enjoying them, and I will now return you to your normal, non-whacked out weekly zoo pics. (Unless I manage to get my hands on a copy of photoshop; then all bets are off. Bwa ha ha ha ha.)
. . .my zoo love gave to me:

Eleven Nemos (er, false anenomefish) swimming,



(okay, yes, there are more than eleven. But they're cool. Took these at Epcot at the end of the Finding Nemo ride. There's a whole aquarium at the end. It's nifty.)

Ten )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Ten nifty beetles,



(I love bugs. Y'all should know that by now. These were taken at the National Zoo, and are part of a, um, mosaic of sorts making up a very big beetle.)

Nine )
. . .my zoo love gave to me:

Nine koi fish,



(These are from the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. This is actually a new batch; sadly, their older ones died because of a filter malfunction last month. Poor fishies.)

Eight )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Eight sable antelope,



Seven )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Seven giraffes and friends:



(There's two Nubian Soemmering's gazelles lying down on the left, they're hard to see, but I swear they're there.)

Six )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Six creepy turtles:



Fiiiiiiiive )
It rained today. All day. And I figured out the best way to get the zoo to yourself is to go when it's raining. It was fun. Barely any people. And the hyenas were (for once) up and walking around (they stared at me. Creepy.) and I got to see the New Guinea singing dog puppies again. Found out the biggest, ugliest camel is named Mongo (which totally fits.) Popped into the nursery, and the lady had the baby Wolf's guenon (a monkey) in her arms and was walking around, but stopped long enough to let me get a look at him. Awww.

The birds were happy. See? These are Lorys in one of the aviaries. They just got fed. This is looking down from a bridge, as it's a multi-level aviary.



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. . .my zoo love gave to me:

Fiiiiiiiive of [livejournal.com profile] birdhousefrog's Chickens!



(Or, at least, their eggs. Mmm. French toast with freshly laid eggs. Yummy! Okay, yeah, so I know these aren't zoo animals, but since I live in a concrete jungle they're exotic to me so you get chickens today.)

Four )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

Four bonobos:



Three )
. . .my zoo love gave to me:

Three tiger cubs:



(Yeah, yeah, I know you just saw them, but they're cute enough to use again. And if you follow the link above, it goes to the San Diego Zoo blog on the tigers and there's a YouTube interview with a keeper about the cubs. It's fun.)

Two )
. . .my zoo love gave to me:

Two pastel cheetahs



(No, no, just wouldn't be right not to include my favorite critters on earth.)

And )
. . . my zoo love gave to me:

A guanaco looking at me!



(and of course these all come with the caveat that I majorly tweaked the pics because I could.)
tcastleb: (Vulture)
( Dec. 10th, 2008 08:03 pm)
Since several of you went OH LOOK KITTY I LUVS KITTIES at the last set, here you go. I got my bare toe stepped on by a squirmy kindergartner in a school group to get this shot, so, you see, I will even risk injury to get a great photo for my fans.



Meet the new kitty on the block: Nindiri the jaguar. She rotates in and out of this cage with the black jaguar, Orson. This is the first time I've seen her up close, and, boy, she's pretty.



And for those of you who are dog people, here's a New Guinea singing dog. She just had puppies. There are four, and they make cute little noises too. The tour bus driver lady said they were about five weeks old.





And, much to everyone's astonishment, including the lady who provides a live, constant panda narration and gently encourages people to move along after taking a few pics, the pandas were playing! Evidently they hadn't done that in ages, or Zhen Zhen, the 16-month-old youngster would, but mom Bai Yun wouldn't. I got lucky; today was an exception.



And here's one of two rhino brothers that were brought in from the Wild Animal Park. They're something-or-other one-horned rhinos.



And in just a couple days I'll be staring the annual 12 days of zoo pics. Yaaay!
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Just posted this on [livejournal.com profile] helpvera:

For sale, one custom-made calendar, poster, mug, mousepad, whatever, with photos I've taken. I'm not a pro, but I do have a DSLR camera that gets some great shots. All my pics are up on my Flickr account and you can choose whichever pics you like.

I live in San Diego, which has lots of scenic places, like the San Diego Zoo: (links go to specific sets.)



Balboa Park:



The ocean (this is Coronado island):



and Sea World:



Products will be made using Quoop, which is associated with Flickr. Item chosen needs to be $18.99 or less (sorry, that's all I can afford right now, UPS ground shipping in addition is $8.95) which gets up to an 18"x24" poster. There's also mugs and prints and books and things; basically, you can pick what you want/need and I'll work with you to make something nifty.

Also, if there's something in San Diego you want a pic of, like, a certain animal, since I have a membership to the Zoo & Wild Animal Park, or more architecture or whatever, I'll do my best to get it for you. I don't have photoshop, so I can only do minimum tweaking to any pics chosen. Any questions, feel free to e-mail me at traci (at) orossy (dot) com. And if you get outbid but would still like something, let me know and I'd be happy to make something as long as the retail price and shipping are covered.

Bidding starts at $25 (Which is retail for the calendar plus shipping.)
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tcastleb: (Vulture)
( Dec. 3rd, 2008 07:28 pm)
Do stay tuned, because in ten days I'll be starting the annual "Twelve Days of Christmas" with zoo critters. -grin- Have a lot of pics to dig through to find the best ones to use.

Got to go to the zoo today. And, hooray, I was lucky enough to see these three cuties:





And this nifty dead leaf mantis (he really was upside down):



And this walking stick bug:



I don't remember if I've ever posted one of these before, but this is a ratel, or a honey badger. Hard to get, 'cause he kept running back and forth along the front and hardly held still.



And this poor snow goose I kept waking up:

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