At the Zoo

  This weekend I went to the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. I go a few times a year and always have a good time. Getting unique quality shots of animals is not easy, it really makes you appreciate the work of wildlife photographers and the time they must put in to getting those amazing shots. My favorite animals to photograph there are these Orangutans. The photo above is of the male. He is almost always by himself away from the females and babies. Often he sits in the sun with a T-shirt on his head but on this day he was smart enough to be sitting in the shade.

Here is the mother and baby. There seems to always be at least one baby there every time go and they are a great deal of fun to watch.  At the same time they will sit still and rest on occasion so they are great subjects.

                                                                                

Here you see the baby one climbing around.  I could easily just stay in this one area for a few hours!

 Here is a chimp. He seemed very content sitting here with a stick in is hand next to some boxes I guess he likes to play with.

This is an ANGOLAN BLACK AND WHITE COLOBUS. They are a lot of fun to watch. They help groom each other and the baby ones are very funny looking.

Duck feet!

I don't remember what this was called but I love the photo. Kind of reminds me of an old lady with a lot of lip stick on!

This is an Emu. Emus are from Australia and can run 30MPH. They are also pretty funny looking :)

Not sure what this bird is called, but I like his look.

The highlight of the day was getting to see this elephant swimming and splashing around in the water! I had never seen that before. After this one got out he/she started playing around with a friend. At first it looked like they were fighting but they were just having fun.

Its so funny how small their tails are compared to the rest of them!

For a few minutes I felt like I was really in Africa!  I ceased to even care about how hot it was watching this, it was so much fun to see!

Hope you have enjoyed these photos. I am really looking forward to going to the Animal Kingdom in Disney this fall as it is my favorite place to go see animals. It puts any zoo to shame. Lowry Park is a nice place to visit there if you haven't been it is a great place to spend a day!

Stephanie