Zoo glass is well-designed for it’s primary purpose. It can keep big dangerous animals on one side and still allow big humans to gawk at them from the other side. It’ll scratch, but it’s not terrible. There’s a slight greenish cast to it, but most people don’t notice and photographers can easily correct for it (if they have full colour vision … those lucky bastards).

One problem with it, though, is that it’ll etch over time and get a bit cloudy. Also, since it’s rather thick, it’s harder to shoot at an angle without it really changing things on the sides of the image.

Sometimes, however, that works out OK.

Surprisingly, with all the zoos I’ve visited, this is the first African Wildcat I’ve seen. This is an interesting side effect of zoos working to save critically endangered species. The wildcat is rated “Least Concern”, so no one is working to actively breed it. I don’t know if this specific animal as a rescue, but if you want to see exotic non-rare species, rescue centers or zoos that work with law enforcement (working against the illegal pet trade) is the way to do it.

When you travel to different zoos, you really start to see many of the same species … those that are endangered but that can also probably be bred. The critically endangered animals that *might* be able to be bred are usually in breeding centers away from the public. Sadly, the critically endangered animals that cannot be bred, for whatever reason, are largely left to their own devices within a rapidly shrinking and worsening habitat.

So many of the animals I see are endangered, some are critically endangered, but the most critically endangered animals on the planet are ones that I will likely never be able to see. Still, I’m glad to see what I have been able to see.

The white-necked raven has one of the worst wikipedia bird pages I’ve ever seen.

I’ve never said this before, but I am disappointed in the low intensity of birders.

The red river hog is actually a red hog that likes rivers in Africa. It does not actually live on the Red River. Not that there’s one Red River. There are actually two, one up North near me and one way down South. Judging from Google Earth, neither of these rivers is actually red. Just in case the colours changed due to the pollution reduction efforts of the EPA, I checked the oldest photos I could, but apparently back then the rivers were sorta black and grey.

Anyway, here’s a completely unrelated pig.

They’re not really green. The Wizard just makes everyone wear green-tinted glasses before they’re allowed to look at the snake.

Baby monkeys are made of velcro.

Modern cameras have a surprisingly good autofocus system, but in low light, it doesn’t always work as you expect … especially in zoos.

To prevent it from “hunting” or moving back and forth quite irritatingly, focusing on the bird’s eye, then the background, then the fence in front, you can use a neat little trick. I have a flashlight with what’s called a “moonlight” mode. It gives just a little bit of light, not enough to bother the animal, but enough to let the autofocus lock on tight so when you take the photo, a momentary flash can fill the scene to capture the photo.

With proper selection, the light is much lower than a lightning flash and a heck of a lot better for the animal than being blinded by the LED on the back of people’s cell phones.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So I must conclude that this bird nests in people’s eyes.

Many people think that this superb owl has bars, but in fact, it just perches on one.