…if you ever happen to be at the river hippo exhibit at the Toronto Zoo and Alison is there with her girls, it’s virtually impossible not to fall in love with them all. The affection they feel for each other is absolutely palpable…
The success of the Toronto Zoo’s breeding program for these adorable but endangered little birds is fantastic and speaks volumes for the incredible work the Keepers do there. As I have mentioned before – and which any of you who have known me longer than just a couple of years already knew – penguins have been my favourite creatures for most of my life and watching the interactions between all of the Keepers who work with them and the tiny denizens of the Zoo’s penguin exhibit is always heart-warming, to say the least.
It then became a matter of waiting as long as I could to get a shot with the most snow possible on Da Mao before he inevitably yawned or stretched or shifted or moved in any way that would disturb this perfect “Still Life with Panda.”
Click individual photos for larger view:
Click individual photos for larger view:
The two young cats were born at the Nashville Zoo in 2013 – Mingma in February and Pavarti in April – and arrived in Toronto as a “breeding pair” in the late Winter or early Spring of 2014. They took quite a while to get used to their new digs – and, oddly, to each other even though it was thought they were already bonded when they arrived.
[Jamarcus] was a precocious young lad from the very beginning and always seemed to be in view. In fact, he was almost too precocious because I needed him to be farther away from the fence to be able to blur it out, whereas he often came over to see the people whenever anyone was stopping by. It was pretty difficult to be frustrated with anything that cute and that close by.
