
Originally planned to visit the zoo on Saturday, but was postponed to Sunday due to Benny’s graduation ceremony on Sat itself. Nonetheless, it couldn’t be a more perfect day as the weather turned out to be fabulous – cloudy & windy. Couldn’t ask for more.

Needless to say, it was photo-frenzy for me. The final count at the end of the day was almost 1,200 shots though after reviewing my collection, about 300 shots have to go straight into the recycle bin.

We caught all 3 shows that were available throughout the zoo, effectively keeping us occupied every 2hrs or so.
But nothing can keep us entertained as much as seeing the animals doing their own thing and getting completely grossed out when the rhino started to rinse his mouth in it’s partner’s pee.

In which they later proceeded to congregate at the mini pool & sniffed & sipped.
The whole zoo area wasn’t exactly big, but because of the layout, we certainly did a lot of walking and no tram for us whatsoever.

Seeing the ferocious lions behind a carefully thought-up restricted compound made me feel sad for them. A once free-roaming big cats of the plains, now confined to the area hardly a fraction of their former territory.
And made worse by seeing an ostrich in front of them everyday and unable to do anything about it…

It’s like trying to curb an age-old animal instinct.
And i’m trying to curb my instinct to trigger my camera at anything that moves.

But i’m lucky i did not, making full use of my zoom range to take some close-up portraits of the animals.
Slightly letdown by the purple fringing around the twigs
Another depressing image of a leopard trapped in an aquarium. Though without the zoo, many of us would never be able to see such animals up close.

Of course, the zoo also help breed endangered species so that future generations are able to learn about them. But the greater irony is that Man is usually the key reason for them being endangered in the first place.
Speaking of which…
The world’s slowest sexual intercourse, not to mention that it could be a matter of life & death should the male flip over & never recover.

We caught our 2nd performance for the day where they advocate the importance of preserving the natural habitats of the animals.
After the performance, Weiting got in touch with his primitive relatives.
Meanwhile, a tiny little monkey peeped through the foliage to see the visitors, only to be greeted with a sight of 8 camera lenses pointing at him.
When you look deep into the monkey’s eyes, you could almost feel its emotions & thoughts. It’s human-like behaviour also makes them feel like a part of us. Except the hairy part.
Since we were in Primate’s Land, we did what we ought to do… monkey around.
The Ethiopian Baboons were a joy to watch, scrambling around, playing, grooming, feeding…
… and yes, that too.

In fact they are such a joy to watch, i’ve taken so many pictures of them and struggling hard to choose which to post up. Perhaps i should do a separate post just on them.

When it came to feeding time, the baboons all lined up facing the zoo keeper & started doing their little tricks to ‘earn’ their meal. It’s quite unnatural to see these animals ‘begging’ for their food, it’s not animal-like.
And you see the alpha-male so proudly doing their tricks to impress, hopefully to gain another banana or two, is just demeaning to their stature. Well, maybe i’m personifying them a little too much.
Moving on to other exhibits in the zoo… The all-too-familiar white tiger which mauled a zookeeper to his death. Wonder which one did it, there were 3.
is this the one?
We made haste for our next animal performance to see the Elephants at Work & Play, where we saw the trained elephants handle the big & heavy log and also the more delicate tasks like picking up a hat.

And also show the playful sight of them blowing water into the crowd…

Though they were trained to do so on cue…
See the elephants smile
Have read about how the elephants were trained in the initial stages where the mahout has to break it’s will in a rather cruel manner (do your own google) such that it will eventually submit to it’s master.
Guess that’s how Man conquer Nature. At least attempts to…

Rounding up our day at the zoo, we headed for the kids zone where it features a mini water theme park for kids (& the kid at heart) to cool down from the afternoon heat.
Seems like some of the kids were all poised to spend the day there instead of the rest of the zoo.

For us, we just explored the rest of the kids area, where we were attacked by the dinosaurs…

I’m just glad i made it back to blog…