I spent 3 weeks in Houston, TX on a business trip and went on a number of interesting zoological nerd adventures. Even better?
I GOT A NEW CAMERA!!!! It’s a D750, so a nice upgrade from the D3000 I’ve been using for the last 10ish years. Still need to get lenses which allow me to take full advantage of the full-frame capacity, but in the meantime I can continue to have fun and learn. After spending far too much time on You-Tube looking up all the tips and tricks my brain could process, the very first place I went was the Houston Zoo. Overall, the Zoo was a good trip and well worth the time (and sore feet!). They have all kinds of animals but really their bird collection is outstanding. I just wish they weren’t all behind so many layers of wire. Trying to get good pictures of birds behind mesh was not easy!!
This little House Sparrow wasn’t a resident of the zoo, but she was flitting around and I wanted to see if I could take a decent picture of the critter as it hopped around looking for crumbs. I managed to get this one, and while it’s not 100% in-focus when it’s blown up I was thrilled to pieces with it. Certainly than better than the initial trip to Galvaston in which I have hundreds of pictures of blurry birds. grrrr.
Seems this trip went to the birds. hahaha. The flamingos were quite animated, but I was able to single out just one bird from the flock. Nerd points to you if you already know this, but flamingos are actually a white bird (born grey, see here) — they turn pink because of their diet. The brine shrimp’s canthaxanthin turns them pink. I’ve seen some flamingos close to flame red, and some barely pink at all. Guess which ones have more canthaxanthin in their system?
The Bald Eagle at the zoo is a permanent resident due to a human shooting her. *sad panda* But she has a good permanent home which will hopefully inspire other humans to be more mindful.
A little break from the birds, this leopard was calmly cleaning herself when I managed to get this picture. She looks so grumpy! My cat makes that same face… I love it!! If you click on any of these pictures, the full sized version will open. Take a look at this big cat’s tongue when you do. Look at those sandpaper ridges! Wow.
I could not resist this duck. He was so industriously bobbing for food, his little feet just flailing away. The other duck was darn persistent, and since he wouldn’t leave to let me get a clean shot of the bobbing duck I figured I’d leave him in the background. I love the little curly cue on the duck’s tail!
The lions were really enjoying a lazy afternoon of warm sun after a week of cool overcast and rain. The zoo has a neat tunnel under the lion’s exhibit. The male lion was totally snoozing away here but the picture was too fun to resist. I have discovered that if there are people in my photos, they are accents or to give a frame of reference. I rarely take photos in which people are the central image. I never quite realized that until recently.
I went on around the zoo and came back later to see the big cats had woken up. Majestic!
While the zoo had a great many beautiful, exotic birds – of which I attempted to photograph many – I’m only going to highlight this one — the Laughing Kookaburra, a native of Australia. I love the little tufts of soft white feathers on either side of his head. It looks like he’s wearing little earmuffs!
Overall, an excellent outing. I have soooo many fun photographs, there’s no way a single post will house them all. For this, I selected my favorites. The rest will be parsed out and posted to my new Instagram account. If you are thinking of going to the Zoo in Houston, I urge you to consider going as close to their opening time as you can get. I was able to get a parking spot and darn near walked right in. When I left at noon, people were circling the parking lot desperately looking for a place and the line to get tickets was huge. Bonus, especially in the heat of summer, the earlier you go then the cooler it will be and the more likely you are to see active animals.
In addition to the Zoo, other nearby places to visit include the Houston Museum of Natural and the Cockrell Butterfly Center. I made to the Gardens, and that post will be coming soon, but I wish I’d know the museum was right there. I’d have made a whole day of it instead of having to run go catch a plane.
The featured image of this post is of the Texan Ocelot they had.
Want to see more of the images from this trip and others? I just joined Instagram! Be sure to follow me there and on Facebook. Until next time, adventure on!