Bristol zoo

Today I went to Bristol zoo with Hannah and her parents. The sun was out and it was a lovely day for shooting with my Canon 450D and slightly slow Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 telephoto lens. These photos are all in chronological order.

We started off in the reptile house. I don’t really know what any of these are since I was more interested in admiring the animals than reading the plaques. The second one is a chameleon which appears to be belching and obviously the fourth one is a snake.

I thought that both of these were lemurs but now I study the photos, the second one probably isn’t.

Obviously, these are parrots. Unfortunately, they didn’t say anything funny and eventually the clicking of my camera annoyed them, and they moved away.

Staying on the bird theme, we caught these Magellanic penguins at feeding time. You can just about see the fish flying towards them in the top-right corner of the photo.

After the penguins, we watched the seals beg for their dinner, too. They were very obedient and well trained – they would lift their flippers, jump, spin on the spot and do all sorts of things that the keeper gestured. But I still think the best photos were of the seals sitting on the rocks, being themselves.

Just a short walk away were the gorillas. They didn’t particularly like showing their faces.

In fact, the best thing in the gorilla compound was actually this moorhen chick. Just a ball of fluff!

Since the British public have fallen in love with Aleksandr Orlav, everyone loves meerkats. They are also excellent photographic subjects, since they sit still.

Other cute mammals that sit still: prairie dogs.

And finally, we returned to the lion enclosure. It was the first thing we saw when we entered, but the lions were nowhere to be seen. On the way out, they were ready and waiting. The male was sleeping lazily on the floor, with his big, sad eyes.

Meanwhile, round the corner, the lioness was sharing a rack of ribs with two of the cubs. She seemed very wary of the tourists standing behind the glass.