The latest post in the occasional series on scientific things we have done around the Bay Area, also known as an opportunity to post gratuitous pictures of furry animals.
Labour Day weekend trip to see San Francisco Zoo. It’s a nice day out, although quite a lot of the enclosures still seem to be awaiting modernisation. But the animals are beautiful and they’ve got some quite unusual ones, including an amazing anteater. My absolute favourite is Thumper the educational porcupine, but he was a bit too far away to get a good picture of. Instead I offer you a flamingo:
More flamingo and zoo pictures on Flickr
A meerkat:
A Grizzly Bear (through glass):
A lemur:
And a peacock, who was not obviously enclosed at all, just sitting in a flowerbed:
On a vaguely scientific note, SF Zoo has an active calendar of public lectures on all sorts of topics. I’ve never been, it’s a bit far away from me, but they seem really interesting. Perhaps they could start broadcasting them into Second Life.
Wonderful shots!
These are great pics! Can you post some details of your camera and lens(es)?
Thanks! Helped out by good raw material rather than any actual talent, I think… ;-)
Ken, I have no idea what the camera or lenses were – just an ordinary digital camera we’ve had for years. I’ll have a look when I get home and see what type it is.
Very nice pics. I am rather fond of taking photos at the zoo, too (not the San Francisco zoo though).
I originally thought your caption on the Meerkat photo was very funny, until I realized it referred to the bear photo below it. Ah well.
Sorry to disappoint, Richard – next time I’ll try for a meerkat related pun in the caption. Somehow not convinced that will be as funny…
Captions have caused this post a lot of difficulty: I had a picture of a beautiful bird I wanted to post, but I couldn’t because I had been so busy taking a picture of it, I’d forgotten to check what species it was and I didn’t think “bird” would go down well in a crowd of
people claiming to bescientists. Any bird experts in the house? My best guess is a white pelican.It looks like a pelican. And it is white…
You should ask the bird expert
@Ken – I’ve had a look at the camera and it is a Kodak LS633. There is some information written on the front which says Variogon 37-11mm (Equiv) AF 3x Optical Does that help?
37-111 mm I’m guessing (that would be 3x zoom). Takes very nice pictures.
That’s an American White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, unless I’m completely mistaken. It has black flight feathers that Wikipedia helpfully describes as “hardly visible except in flight”.
Thanks, Richard. Officially relabelled a Pelecanus erythrorhynchos. The black flight feathers are quite common, aren’t they? I remember in Tanzania seeing an enormous flock of black birds in the sky, coming into land. We had no idea what they were until they reached the ground and were bright pink flamingos, which evidently had completely black feathers on the underside of the wings.
I remember in Tanzania seeing an enormous flock of black birds in the sky, coming into land. We had no idea what they were until they reached the ground and were bright pink flamingos,
Ok, now I’m jealous. :)
@Joanna: That sounds like a run-of-the-mill camera and lens, which highlights your skill even more :)
Agreed. The flamingo picture is particularly good, and you’ve caught the Meerkat in a nice pose. :)
Aww, thanks, guys :) Must say, though, having stared at them for a long time, I’m pretty sure meerkats don’t have bad poses!