Friday, July 18, 2008

Valley Zoo

Monday after Aunty Liz got off work she, Mom, Grandpa, Jonathan and I went to the Edmonton Valley Zoo. We used to go there when I was younger but we haven't been in a LONG time. Fortunately, it was much like I remembered and still a really fun place to go, especially with an almost three year old.

Some of the displays made us laugh, like this guinea pig enclosure on the left. I have never seen so many guinea pigs together and they were all different!

Hey V, a kookabura, just for you :) He was singing up a storm too :D
This is Jonathan looking at the ring-tailed lemurs.

The Valley Zoo recently welcomed two baby Red Pandas. My dad is obsessed with these creatures. He, Mom, Seth and Robert went to the Calgary Zoo and saw the pandas there so when we saw this guy, I had to call him. They are really interesting creatures. Apparently zoologists had a hard time classifying these creatures and finally dubbed them "pandas" because they eat bamboo.
We never did see the babies but this adult was pretty to look at.
My personal favourite animals were the gibbons. they were really hard to photograph because they were behind glass and swinging like crazy!!! It was so fun to watch them go back and forth and around and around.

Grandpa's favourite was the elephant. I can't make this picture rotate correctly but you get the idea. He was amazed that the trainers could get that close to such a large animal and that it would just stand there and let them wash it. They sprayed it and then scrubbed it with long handled brushes. It was fun to watch.
I don't technically have permission to post pictures of Jonathan so these "creative shots" will have to do ;) Aunty Liz bought him this tiger in the gift shop. At the end of the handles is a trigger you can squeeze and the tiger opens his mouth. Jonathan spent the rest of the day walking around roaring and biting things.

And this is the entrance to the zoo on our way out.

1 comment:

Veronica said...

How unusual to see a kookaburra outside of Australia! Glad you got to hear him sing too. I was feeding "our" kookaburra this morning - he eats straight off a spoon! Love that guy :)
Looks like a cute zoo!