LJ:

We went to the zoo today. At least two different animals went to the bathroom (a goat in the petting zoo and a gorilla pee'd), and it looked like some pigeons dropped some stuff, too.

The apes might have been the most interesting. One chimp was by himself and was keeping still when we first walked past. No one was looking at him (he was kind of hard to see). We came back later, and he was shuffling around (and had attracted a crowd). He was also making "kissy" expressions with his lips. We thought he was either breaking it down, or (more realistically) practicing some mating strutting, but neither was correct. He was getting pissed off, and went straight from strutting to charging a visitor. He hit the glass full force. He gave it at least one more try later. I guess he just didn't want to be watched.

An orangutan was picking through a food bucket, and dropping pop corn all over itself. At first I thought it was being a messy eater, but no: The keepers had put pop corn and carrots together in one bucket, and the orangutan was only interested in the carrots.

Almost every time I go to the zoo, I'm amazed at how intelligent the other primates seem.

Meerkats often look intelligent to me, but today they were fighting a lot. I guess they might have just been playing rather than really fighting, but, aside from them often losing interest, it was hard to tell. One fight continued into a burrow underground. Fighting while being almost buried alive seems like it would be frightening.

We saw a turtle outside that had caught a minnow. It bit off the back of the tail, and while it swallowed held the remainder of the minnow in its paw.

A zoo keeper was spraying off a bird's cage with a hose, and the bird would alternately raise one of its wings, so it could be thoroughly cleaned.

FO liked the bob white, because it was doing its trademark call (that sounds vaguely like "bob white", but probably more like "to... whit!")

We saw a humming bird outside drinking from some flowers! It wasn't even part of an exhibit! I think that was only the second humming bird I've seen in person in my life (the first I saw just a few weeks ago). It eventually flew up to the flowers I was next to, so I was only a couple of feet away from it.

A young elephant climbed onto a log and was moonwalking on it. It has some trouble getting down. Then it seemed to have some fun just playing around with its nose, swatting itself in the head with it, or swishing some twigs around.

Even in the animal kingdom, it seems adults are more serious and less likely to play (that was not only true for the elephants, but also the gorillas).

It seemed like a lot of the animals were just being lazy, either actually sleeping or at least loafing, today, but we still saw a lot of interesting things.

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell