Raining Kangaroos

It is, perhaps, an amazing, if not miraculous, truth that in all of our zoo visits we have only ever been rained on twice.  Until today it had been once, but now it has been twice.  Of course we knew we were stretching our luck when the forcast called for scattered thunderstorms throughout the day, but we just didn't know how many more Saturdays we would have to make a trip like this before Raspberry makes his appearance, so off we went.  And we did the zoo backwards today, too.  Usually we head straight for the tigers because they are most active right away, but today we headed straight for the back corner of the zoo to see the kangaroos.  That new exhibit really is a lot of fun.  Since it was still cool, and since there weren't too many people in the exhibit yet, the kagaroos were a very rewarding first stop.  Several of them were highly active, hopping right across the path and coming within feet of us.  One specific, and rather large, male was a major camera hog.  While we were looking in another direction he snuck right up next to us so that when we turned around he was about four feet from us.  Four feet!  No zoom required for that photo.  Since we didn't get to see the joey on that trip through we also visited again later and that was when we got caught in a downpour.  Did you know that kangaroos hate the rain?  As it started to sprinkle every one of them stood up from their reclined positions and looked at each other, then headed straight for the shelter in a big train - don't get in their way!  That provided our best view of the joey poking his little head out of mom's pouch, but he was still pretty far away, hence the blurry zoom and crop.  It was worth getting wet anyhow.  And, just so that you don't think we spend all of our time in the kangaroo exhibit...here's a picture of the aardvark.

To Australia in under a minute flat.

Binder Park may have the seven minute train to Africa, and Toledo the two minute train to Africa (who would buy seven minute abs when there's six minutes abs...), but Detroit now has their own distance defying foreign trek - Australia in less than a minute!  Newly opened this year is their Walkabout, a lovely trip to Australia in the time it takes you to walk through two sets of doors.  What will you see in Australia?  While traversing the dirt path through the rock formations and the camp setups left by previous hikers one can peruse a plethera of signs describing the animals, cultures, and peoples of that lovely country.  There are also free ranging peacocks (hey, this is our own version of Australia, not Australia's), and free ranging...you guessed it!  Kangaroos.  Of course said kangaroos were definitely free, but clearly not ranging while we were there today in the ninety degree heat.  What they were doing more closely resembled lounging, but we enjoyed our Australian outback adventure anyhow.  Besides, Detroit has another piece of news this year - a brand new joey!  This new joey came as a surprise not only to visitors to the Perth area, but also to keepers as well, seeing as that all the male kangaroos has previously undergone vasectomies, but this new little miracle occured all on its own (?) and is there for all to enjoy.  They believe him (or her) to be about five months old and he is curiously poking his bald little face out of his mother's pouch constantly and will soon be venturing out entirely.  He is pictured here with his mother - both of his arms and his chin show here, as well as the black dot which his eye being shielded by that top arm.  See if you can make him out...

Africa was active today!

Continuing our final tour of zoos before the baby comes on the scene we found ourselves enjoying a beautiful afternoon at the Toledo Zoo today.  And here we must note the reality of Murphy's Law:  We carefully thought it through this morning and decided not to take the video camera because, as Jon said, "it's not really a video camera type of zoo."  Having thus left the video camera at home let us list for you the things we were only able to capture in still form:  In Africa the giraffes were running and chasing the zebras back and forth while the gnus were sparring;  While eating lunch (by the way - the Toledo Zoo knows how to do food!) we watched a momma bird feed her babies who were nested above our picnic table;  The two hippos were actively chasing and mouthing each other and performing dolphin-like dives;  The two-toed sloth (slowly) moved directly over our heads in the free ranging rain forest area.  It was a great day and we had a great time.  There might have been more, but the battery in the still camera started to die.  The other lesson we learned today?  From now on we need to be sure to keep the camera charged and the memory cards empty so that we will be ready for whenever Raspberry decides to arrive!

Rapberry, meet the giraffes. Giraffes, meet Raspberry.

Raspberry had his first close encounter with a large African animal today!  Binder Park is the zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan, where the guests can feed the giraffes, but the zoo closes for the winter for we figure that the giraffes must go very hungry during that time, right?  Well, the zoo reopened today so we packed up and headed out in order to make up for all that lost time!  In fact, we've been looking forward to this day literally for months, and we even took our friends Erin and Andrew along as reinforcements.  We lucked out and had a beautiful day - hazy sun, a light breeze, and just enough warmth.  We think the tram to Africa got faster this year, too.  Last year we think we remember it being seven minutes to Africa, but this year it was only five.  The giraffes were happy to see us.  Us particularly, mind you, becuase we always overfeed them.  Of course we also had to visit the children's zoo - it's one of Jon's favorite parts because of the large rabbits - and almost lost Cortney while we were there (really, is she the one in the cage, or is it the pigs?), then we finished by visiting the mile long boardwalk hike though the wetlands.  We seriously tired ourselves out, so that all four of us were pretty quiet on the ride home.  Today's trip was especially productive because Jon got in some practice with the new video camera (we especially like the headless horseman part, Andrew) so that we'll be ready when Raspberry arrives.  In fact, watch for practice clips on the site here as we get better with this complex new piece of equipment. 

Easter enrichment at the zoo

We were back at the Detroit Zoo today, and were reminded again of how very different an experience it can be every single time.  Today was Bunnyville day, the zoo's celebration of Easter, and there were eggs and enrichments all around!  The gorillas and chimps got large papier mache eggs, as did many other animals.  The wolverines got a tiger striped papier mache animal, which concerned them at first, until they found it to contain treats.  And the polar bears got ice pops with fish in them.  Fun all around.  We found ourselves enriched by new activity also:  Both of the zoo's new rhinos were actually out together today;  Talini, our baby polar bear born in Nov. 2004, was finally in the big pool where we could see her swim with her mom (she's getting big!);  And, perhaps most astonishing of all, the aardvark was out where we could see him!!!  We are sad to note, however, that the Pudu and his capybara friend were off exhibit.  We hope to see them return soon.