Vienna Zoo

I mentioned our trip to the zoo a little over a week ago, but wanted to write more about it and share some photos of the animals. I was amazed at how many professional photographers were there. I was snapping away with my point-and-shoot and I think I got some decent photos.

One of the highlights was seeing the polar bears. There are two polar cubs that we were hoping to see, but at first we only saw one bear pacing around out front. He seemed a bit agitated.


Not long after, we realized that he was just trying to distract us from the mama and baby bears around the corner. The mama stood like this for hours while her two cubs wrestled behind her.


We walked back past the polar bears an hour or two later and found them like this. I hope every day isn't this exhausting for them.



I think this was the first time I had seen polar bears, but there were other animals I had never seen at a zoo before. For example, penguins and grasshoppers.



And yes, there really were grasshoppers in the zoo.



In this same area, there were also maggots and cockroaches. But I didn't take photos of them because I knew no one would want to see them. There were also some glass cages with crickets. My mom pointed out that there was ample room for the crickets to escape at the back of the cage where the glass didn't go to the wall. And sure enough, right below the cage we noticed some crickets that looked suspiciously like the crickets in the cage.

The crickets weren't the only animals escaping their containment. I don't know if you can really tell in this photo, but this is some kind of woodland creature slipping under the ropes to head back into his area. Right inside this wire fence is a small electric fence. But apparently it's not working because we saw several of these critters scamper right over it.



And we found this peacock sitting behind a sign. I'm not even sure he has a cage -- maybe he just wanders around.



Oh yes, the penguins. We finally found them as they were receiving a quick shower. What's up with that black furry penguin in the middle? I've never seen anything like that.



The zoo also has a baby panda that has been big news in these parts. She was born last year and I believe she is one of the few pandas conceived by natural means within captivity. If you visit the zoo's website, you can even see photos of those natural means by which she was conceived. But this is a family website, so I'm not going to show those photos here. We didn't see the baby panda because there was a half-hour wait to get into the building and then there was guarantee that she would be out at the time.

We saw a lot of other animals as well. A buffalo, birds, giraffes, monkeys and such. But I only have one last photo. I think this is the creepiest looking bird ever. That eye just makes me shudder.




You can check out the rest of the zoo photos on my Flickr page.