Our Trip to the Zoo Part 1

I have to do this in parts as I took a lot of pictures and I have to sort through them all.  Some of the pictures came out very good and sadly others not so good.  I think I'm going to have to take another trip to the zoo soon.  Maybe by then I'll have figured out how to take better pictures.  I think my biggest mistake was using a filter that was supposed to protect against UV rays and it made things come out not as clear.  Other pictures I took with a different lens and with a different filter mostly came out better in some cases.  I have to say up front that the Pittsburgh Zoo was is a very fine zoo, and has lots of wonderful exhibits.  They didn't have a hippopotamus though and that was sad.  I really like hippos.

I am not sure what kind of trees these are, but there were a bunch of them near the entrance to the zoo.

This guy was keeping watch over the entrance.  I thought it was a really cool sculpture.

The snow leopard was very sleepy and we found him in his little nook under a rock

Next up was the Komodo dragon.  He was very very big, but he too was tired, and didn't want to be out side his enclosure.

I think we got to the zoo at nap time, even the flamingos were sleeping

The tigers were near the entrance, and they too were sleepy, so we decided we would stop back later and see if they were up and around.

The rhinoceros was walking around.  He is a very amazing animal.  But I think he is the only one they have so he didn't have anyone else to ... do  what ever rhinos do..with.

The lions had just woken up from their nap.  Here Mr. Lion is giving Mrs. Lion a loving nudge.  Aren't they cute ;)

The Leopard didn't want to have his picture taken.  He kept his back to us most of the time.

We only saw one ostrich ... WOW are these things HUGE!!

I'm off to fix dinner now, and then I need to catch up with every one else's posts and photos.  I'll sort through and post more of our trip later tonight and tomorrow.