Photos.

London Zoo

Last week I had a job interview with the Zoological Society of London. I can't take the job because it's a volunteer position that only pays for lunch and travel within London, so it would cost me too much. Too bad, because it was a really interesting job. Anyway, since I was in London and at the ZSL, and therefore right next to the zoo, I decided to go early and wander around the zoo for a while. Zoo animals are always hard to take pictures of because of wire and glass and fences and exhibit corners in between you and them. Lighting is a big problem for anything that's inside. It also gets dark by 4:00 pm here now, and it was kind of a grey day anyway. So getting good photos was a bit of challenge. I did manage to get some that I'm happy with though, so here are a selection of the better ones.


A meerkat on the lookout. I was about the only thing it had to watch for, since the zoo was really not very busy.

A Hawk Owl. These guys are cool because they're owls which hunt during the daytime, so they look and act more like hawks than owls (hence the name).

A Palawan Peacock Pheasant. I like how this photo turned out with his pose in the greenery.

Llamas are bigger than frogs.

The skunk is not a very exotic creature to those of us who drive on Canadian roads, but this skunk was very fat and shiny and trundling around happily picking up his carroty lunch, so I had to take his picture.

A leafcutter ant with a very heavy load. This picture makes me wish I had a macro lens.

A lion and his... blanky?

Black-footed penguins going for a walk around their pool.

Jimmy and his son Yoda, the White-cheeked gibbons. I'm not sure which one is which.

A Radiated tortoise eating lunch. He's actually only a few inches long.

Sadly, the Red River Hogs, which are one of my favourite pigs, were not on display. Neither were the warthogs. And the pictures I took of the Bearded Pigs did not come out very well because it was getting dark by that point. I guess I'll just have to go back another time.

posted by Sian at 4:38 PM