Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Great White Pelican

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Red Panda

The Red Panda is a mammal that comes from Central Asia.  It lives in tree tops, is slightly larger than a domestic cat.  From Wikipedia we learn that "...it has reddish-brown fur, a long, shaggy tail, and a waddling gait due to its shorter front legs.  It eats mainly bamboo, but is omnivorous and may also eat eggs, birds, insects, and small mammals. It is a solitary animal..."


There is that bushy tail.



Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Cockatiel

Lots of these lovely little birds in the Walkabout Aviary in the Austrailian Adventure.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Binturong

The Binturong is a member of the mongoose family. It is commonly known as a Asian Bearcat, the Palawan Bearcat, or simply the Bearcat. The signage at the zoo explained they have a prehensile or grasping tail.  They live a solitary life, sleeping (on branches) during the day, usually with their head tucked under their tail. They run between 24–38 inches and 20–31 pounds. This day, this binturong, was sleeping, but, not with it's head under the tail.  I found it quite interesting that the zoo had a very large fan blowing all day long on this sleepy head.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, The Cattle Egret

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Siamang Apes

Due to the fencing, I had a pretty hard time photographing these magnificent apes.  Apes have no tails, monkeys do.  These are native to Malaysia, Thailand, and Samatra.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Yellow-Green Jumping Thing, Ewwww

I leaned over to see zoo exhibit, in the African display, and came face to face with:

And, here is what it looks like cropped, maybe TOO close and personal, ewwwwwwwwwwww

*I have an extreme dislike for things like this that jump since I was preggers and something (a cricket??) jumped right into my face.  Years later I had something akin to this bite me on the back of my knee, which bite, I had an adverse allergic type reaction to.  Therefore, EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!

Fort Wayne's Children's Zool, Eurasian Eagle Owl

*Don't cha love the fence (silver) in the foreground?  You can get a photo, but, will work a bit to get it!  LOL

Wordless Wednesday, Queen Anne's Lace, The Fall Version

Linda, from Flipside has  photo of thistle in  the fall this week over at her blog for Wordless Wednesday.  Reflections, just so happens to have Queen Anne's Lace in the fall.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Fire Bellied Toads

Yes, they were behind glass, whew!

I just had to google this one, the name was intriguing.  From Wikipedia (use your own judgement as to quality of the information).

"'Fire-bellied' is derived from the brightly coloured red- or yellow-and-black patterns on the toads' ventral regions, which act as aposematic coloration, a warning to predators of the toads' reputedly foul taste. The other parts of the toads' skins are green or dark brown. When confronted with a potential predator, these toads commonly engage in an Unkenreflex, "Unken" being the plural form of "Unke", German for for firebellied toad. In the Unkenreflex, the toad arches its back, raising its front and back legs to display the aposematic coloration of its ventral side."

Gotta say, that is rather interesting!  And, the rest of the article was too!

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, California Sea Lion

*Photo taken through glass (or plexiglass or some glass like wall).  Lots of reflections and shadows made the task difficult.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Rainbow Lorikeet

There is a "Walkabout Aviary" in the Austrailian Adventure area of the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo.  Go in one door, shut it, and then go in a second.  The birds are free to fly, you are free to enjoy!  Today the rainbow lorikeet, in the coming days, well, stick around to see.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Black Swan

I believe this is the black swan, the cygnus atratus, from Austrailia. A quick google search will tell you the black swan is 8 to 20 pounds, 43 to 56 inches long and the wing span is an impressive 5.3 to 6.5 feet!

You can see just how large this fowl is, when you compare him (her?) to the eastern grey kangaroo, who can grow to 6 foot tall.

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo

The informational signage at the zoo tells us this about the eastern grey kangaroo:

• They can grow to 6 foot, they are one of the largest kangaroos.
• They live in dry forest areas of eastern Australia.
• They live in "mobs" of 20 or more individuals.

Well, let me tell you, they can tell you they are large, but until you see them, words are only words. Sadly, photos don't allow for total appreciation either, but, look at those tails!  I'll bet they were close to 6 inches in diameter, and VERY LONG!  Had to be very strong too.

I found references on the net that the tail was about 4 foot long, the animal was could weigh as much as 145 pounds and they can jump up to 30 feet at one time.  Can we say, W-O-W??

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Sumatran Orangutan

We saw two orangutans in this enclosure. The enclosure was a glass type, so reflections and glare presented serious problems photographing them.  I probably took close to 20 shots, and most were deleted. 

This one sat, holding on to a grip above, looking in

the opening (to dinner?).  Best photo I could get.

This one played peek-a-boo with it's blanket,

never really coming out from under it. 

Fort Wayne's Children's Zoo, Dingos

AaaaChooo in Blue

Today is Wordless Wednesday for many bloggers.  Linda, Flipside, posted some aaaachooo, golden rod, photos.  Hers were taken from her pink yak with her waterproof camera, which she claims is not quality, but, love the photos Linda, me thinks it is plenty of aaaachooo quality.

So, happens, that I had also taken a number of photos of golden rod this week,  it is abundant, poor allergy sufferers.  SIGHH.  Course, even weeds and nasty allergy producers have a inherent beauty, and I go looking for that, sometimes I find it, sometimes not!

So, I downloaded photos a bit ago, picked a photo I liked, loaded to the photo editing program to crop and edit.  I hit autocorrect, and lookie what I got.  Had to share!

I love photo editing/cropping, but, sometimes that program has a mind of it's own.  Calling out it's own creative license?  LOL

Here is the photo I was looking for