August At The Zoo

I went to the Denver Zoo Wednesday afternoon to walk around the place and take a few photographs. The heat wave we have been experiencing here in Denver this summer has ended - at least temporarily - and so most of the animals were out and about, although many of them were sticking to the shade, including the lion in the photograph on the left. Between naps, he was kind enough to sit up and pose for the camera.

One of the two tigers at the Denver Zoo was also up and about, and willing to pose for a portrait, too. Unfortunately, it was not a very high quality image that I took. I had to spend a lot of time working in photoshop to make it half-way decent. I am still not happy with the quality, but on the other hand, it is just a blog photograph and not heading to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and so to hell with it. It is what it is - a tiger in bad light, but looking right at me.

The outside cage for the black and white colobus monkeys was undergoing maintenance Wednesday afternoon, and so I took the photograph on the left of one of those monkeys in their inside compound. It is rare that they look me right in the eye like in this photo - they are usually sleeping with their backs toward me, or else picking through each other's fur looking for something tasty to eat. I don't take it personally, of course, and am just happy on the rare occasion they do want to pose.

The zebra in the photograph on the right is not shy - it is simply standing in front of it's feeding trough. The fact that it is looking right at me is just a happy coincidence. It was just looking up in between bites. The rest of the zebras were on the opposite side of the compound, hanging out in the shade and waiting to go inside and enjoy the air conditioning, and perhaps watch a few episodes of Animal Planet on cable TV. And are the animals at the Denver Zoo all spoiled? Nah. Just most of them.