More Marvin the Duck

  It has been awhile since I posted any photos of my favorite neighborhood duck, Marvin. For those new here I call him Marvin because when I first saw him he reminded me of the Looney Tunes Marvin the Martian character with the brush on his head. Marvin lives on the lake in my community with a bunch of mallards. I am told he has lived here at least 5 years. Every time I go for a walk I look for him, he is like the community mascot.

A few months ago a grey duck moved here and now they are a couple, always swimming around together. I need to go back and get some good shots of them together.

  Despite living here so long and having people feeding him every day, Marvin is pretty shy and usually won't let me get too close. He was pretty good this day though and I was able to get some fun shots with my 70-300mm.  

  I like this image because to me it looks like he is looking out onto the lake pondering life lol. I love watching animals. The lives of the ducks here are pretty simple, swim, eat, sleep and occasionally argue with one another. Marvin can be a little evil sometimes going after another duck and chasing him/her away for no apparent reason then returning to his peaceful swim across the lake.

  I like this photo because you can see his reflection on the water.  Long after I move from here I will treasure these photos Marvin. Too often we allow people, pets, events to come and go from our lives without capturing quality photos which will help to keep their spirits and memories alive in us. It is one of  the reasons I am a photographer. 

  I am going to be in Orlando the next few days and on Saturday will be attending a fair in Mount Dora which is a really nice little town north of there. Hope to get some fun shots to share.

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