The Zoo all for me!

When the Greater Cincinnati Environmental Educator Expo came around this year, I hopped on the bandwagon.  The council used the new education building at the Cincinnati Zoo, and after set-up we were free to roam the zoo at will for two hours.

I have never been to the zoo by myself.  No stroller?  No kids begging for stuff from the gift shop?  It was hard not to skip to my lou.

(I was hoping to see Thane.  We end up at the same events, but never seem to hook up.  Sigh....for a refresher course in "Thane and Me", see this post...found out that he was doing a talk in the room next to the expo, but I couldn't leave my table.)

What I did see were some cute/silly animal behaviors.  And some things that I have never been able to just stand and observe.


In the Discovery Forest, I always look for the Two-Toed Sloth.  And he is always in the same place.  Sleeping in his tree.  This makes me smile.



There are two Laughing Kookaburras right outside the "Bird Building".  This one was so bright-eyed and curious....walked right up to the barricade to blink at me with those lovely slate eyes.  He made me smile.


Ever since I got to hear Kelly do her kookaburra impression, she is what I think of when I see a  kookaburra. 


The bird building is of course my favorite part of the zoo....full of feathered lovelies from all over the world.  From King Penguins to Whiskered Auklets to Rhinoceros Hornbills to Scarlet Ibis.
And this extremely friendly eider (don't know the species) who wanted to come and investigate me through the glass.  It made me smile.



This black bear reminded me of this day at last year's New River Birding and Nature Festival. 
The floppy gap in his mouth made me smile.



The white lions were asleep too.
(The zoo's white lions are gifts from none other than Siegfried and Roy)

That pink tongue...my house cats do the same thing.  Made me smile.


I got to pet this two year old alligator.  I didn't tell the handler that he felt like a purse.  That would have been tacky.

His cool leathery skin made me smile.  And the fact that I was brave enough to do it.

This lemur was all like, "Meh."
Made me laugh.



A new exhibit, "Dragons", highlights the world's monitor lizards, from tiny Adobe Monitors to the ginormous Komodo Dragon.  This is the hind end...the end you want to see.

 I just stood there and stared and stared at the massive amount of dragon flesh stretched out in there.


The Cat House (I always laugh when I say that) is another favorite.  Too bad the urine smell is so bad in the building....I wonder if they can do something about that.

Looking for all the world like a little domestic cat, this Sand Cat was taking a nap and making my heart do a little dance.  Check out that fur....strokable.


The Meerkat was showing me his brain, via his nostrils:



The Macaque exhibit is on an island in the middle of the zoo.  This one is preparing his "Hamlet" soliloquy.

Look at that face.  Hey, Creationists?  You honestly think we aren't related????


I think this one was burping.



I watched this one, alone and tucked into one of the rock crevices, for about five minutes.  He was just playing with his toes.   :)



The last exhibit I visited before I had to hustle back to the expo was what I thought was the bald eagle eyrie.
Was I ever surprised to be confronted with an ANDEAN CONDOR.

With the largest wingspan of any land bird (3.2 meters....that's over 10 feet, y'all), and a body that weighs up to 31 pounds (THIRTY ONE!), it's a bird that inspires awe.  I stood there like an idiot for a few minutes, just staring.  I didn't know the zoo had acquired a condor.  This is a big deal.  This one is a female (See her red eyes?  Males have brown eyes.  And females lack the red comb of flesh above the beak that males have).
I had her all to myself.  She was fairly close, and we sized each other up...I was obviously boring, as she resumed preening.  All I could think was, "That is one BIG A$$ bird...."
A great day.  

Small moments

Late summer drones on for me...the girls are back to school, but the bird action (now that I have some time to get out and watch them) is still quiet.  Babies are grown, the fall exodus not yet begun....

I take what I can get, though.  Small moments of magic. 



I found a flower whose stamens are minuscule Pixie Stix.

(Please click on this to see it larger...)


Glowing Morning Glory.




Did not know an inchworm was also noodling his way through the thistle blooms alongside the skipper.
(This skipper was the size of a quarter.)





A delicate, tiny white flower in the underbrush...



So small and fragile-looking, I held my breath as I took its picture.



Watched water striders' shadows chase them under the water.



I found water so clear, it held the sky inside.



Just the right patch of shade gave me a star.



Stumbled across a bird finally, a solitary sandpiper eating a small fish.



A small moment that was huge for me....
I've always wanted to see this.  A damselfly freshly emerged from its nymph skin. 



Zero defining marks.  Just opalescent translucence.

I've never held a dragonfly or damselfly.  They are too smart, too fast for that.  I've always wanted to, but never had the chance.

And then he climbed onto my fingernail. 

Cuteness and its many forms

If you recall from this post, Thirteen our screech owl is going through the atypical feather molt that seems to be the bane of captive screech owls everywhere.
A week after I took those photos, I went in to get him again.  Things are looking up....but little dude still has a long way to go.


At least his ear tufts are coming back...
No matter how many feathers he loses, I still think Thirteen is cute.
Sort of like a Jim Henson creation.  Think about Animal.  That's one weird looking thing.  But we all love him anyway, right?

If he let me, I would love to help him preen off all of those feather sheaths....



A few things to point out, since it's not every day you get to observe a screech owl so closely:

The nictitating membrane:  (from the Latin nictare, to blink)
This is a membrane present in many animals such as birds, reptiles and sharks.  Some mammals have a vestigal nictitating membrane (We humans have it...the pink bit in the inner corner) while some mammals have a fully active, controllable membrane.


They are either transparent or translucent....in the above photo, we can clearly see the disapproval and embarrassment through the membrane.




Another cool thing:
The ears of an owl are set near the face, close to the sides but facing forward.  In the Tytonidae owl species (such as Barn Owls), and the aperture is rounded and asymmetrical (the left ear is set higher than the right), but in the Strigidae owls, the shape of the aperture varies.
An owl's range of audible sounds is not dissimilar to ours, but their hearing is so acute at certain frequencies they are able to hear the slightest movement of their prey.
The facial disc that every owl species possesses funnels sound waves right to the ears, acting like a satellite dish.  And they are able to manipulate those feathers to calculate where their prey is.  Barn owls' hearing is so acute, they can find their prey in total darkness.


And when the satellite dish falls off, we can see right in there.
If you can see the hole in Thirteen's head, behind and just under his eye?  This is the ear canal. 

I love this photo just for the glint of sunlight in his eye.    And that pitiful ear tuft, still half wrapped in sheaths:




A completely different type of cuteness:

School begin this week and the girls are excited to be back.
A big thing around here is that Lorelei is cheerleading this year. 
And boy is she good at it.  It comes to her naturally, this whole ra-ra thing.

This beautiful and good-natured child has been fun to be with since birth.  Shoot....even delivering her was EASY.


Today we got to watch her do her very first cheerleading gig, complete with football game.



Now, I did the cheerleading back in the day, just for a year.  I don't really know why.  I ended up being one of those ironically sarcastic teenagers who quietly sneered at cheerleaders.
So along with it being amazingly expensive, I had to struggle with my inner conflict....

But when a child really really wants to do something like this, a good mom just bites her tongue and writes the check.



(We won, too.  It was a scoreless game until the fourth quarter, when out of the blue, one of our boys had the ball and somehow outran everyone down the field for a 60 yard touchdown. 
I broke a blood vessel in my finger, I got so into it.  It was awesome.
(Maybe I didn't completely leave the cheerleading behind?)


Check this out....it starts EARLY, the whole football player/cheerleader thing:

That boy does NOT have his mind on the game.

The Summer Dance

The party isn't over
But some are ready to go
and some are already gone


Her gown
Fresh and bright at the start








Shows the wear and tear of the dance




The lights will dim



and the debris with begin to blow
across the dance floor




Where so many found a partner


The colors will change along the walls
as it reaches its close,



The weary dancers slow their spinning
and prepare their exit



It's been a wonderful party
and all good things must end



But not yet...

Neat things I saw this weekend

Saturday found me at the second annual Midwest Native Plant Conference in Beavercreek Ohio.  I displayed some of our education birds for the participants to ooh and ahh over.

I was so happy to run into Wil Hershberger...New River Bird and Nature Festival-goers know him well.  He's the nice one.  :)

My table was across the room from his, so I was sneakily shooting photos of him:

Hee hee, he doesn't see me....




Oops, now he sees me!


Oh, what a nice person.  And I mean a genuinely nice person. 
Before he left, I asked someone to take a photo of Wil, me and one of the birds.  I shouldn't have chosen Storm.


Storm doesn't know what it means when I say, "Hey, goofy bird.  Look at the camera!"


Other things I saw this weekend:

Question mark butterfly noodling in the mud

Electric blue dragonfly on a sauerkraut jar (that doubled as a minnow container)

The closest I've been to a green heron, without it pooping violently and flying away








And in the classic tradition of the yearly summer "Screech Owl Ugly Molt"....long time readers of this blog will remember Rufous, bless his little soul:



Well, Thirteen might just have him beat....