Yesterday it was a glorious morning and on the way to preschool Young Indiana said to me, “We should go to the zoo after school on this beautiful day!” That seemed like a very sensible thing to do, so after school I collected him and we hopped on the bus to, er, actually, to go downtown and then get on the bus to the zoo, because that was by far the easiest way to get there, but, y’know, details details. To go to the zoo. :) It was in fact…
I love both of these pictures individually, but I think together they’re just about perfect. :)
Swimming Hippo: the March picture for the 2014 CE Murphy photographic calendar. Hippos are not especially easy creatures to take a cool picture of. They tend too much to looking like giant blobs, whether in the water or out. But I rather liked this one, albeit with a gladness that I was not anywhere near where she could suddenly lunge out of the water and lumber toward me… :)
Tiger: the February picture for the 2014 CE Murphy photographic calendar. I gave several people copies of the calendar for Christmas. Upon seeing this picture, there were gasps of, “How close did you have to get for this picture?!” I was really about three feet away, probably; the tiger was obligingly lying near the glass of its enclosure, and I had a good lens on the camera. :)
These lovely little creatures are basically giant South American guinea pigs, although they look more like rabbits crossed with antelope. Dublin Zoo and Fota Island, where this was taken, has quite a few of them, and at Fota they’re totally free-range. They’re very very shy and charming, and I spent a lot of time at Fota sneaking up on them to take pictures. More pictures than might be strictly necessary, really. I have a lot of mara pics. :)