Wednesday, June 17, 2009

London Zoo

As Paul is on holiday and it was a lovely day, we all decided to go to London Zoo and visit the animals.  Firstly, we had to contend with the scary driving through London, but we all arrived safely though we felt a little car sick!

Initial impressions were that London Zoo wasn't quite as spacious as Whipsnade Zoo, with the animals having smaller pens and less room to roam around.  And there were no bears (except for red pandas)!  But, apart from that, we had a great day out and met some fascinating and scary animals - Sumatran Tigers, Lions, Komodo Dragons, Gorillas, a mother and baby hippo, African Hunting Dogs, Camels, Giraffes, Zebras and the stars of the show, Meerkats!

There were 2 Sumatran Tigers.  These are slightly smaller than the Siberian Tigers at Whipsnade Zoo, but they are still very impressive. 

This is the female tiger lying on top of the shelter.  She had been sitting inside but she reluctantly moved when the male tiger arrived.  Here he is....
Next it was off to the Lion enclosure, where Mr Lion was doing some very loud and impressive roaring! 
We like Mr Lion's shaggy mane, and we're sure that Kitty Cat would like one just like that!
Mr Lion snoozing.
Then we went to see the Meerkats.
This is the lookout Meerkat - the rest were asleep but he was on watch, checking for any danger to the group.  They were much smaller than we thought they would be, but very cute and just like the meerkats in the TV advert!
These are the large and rather scary African Hunting Dogs, though we loved their huge ears!  We bet you could get radio reception from all over the world with those!
Here is the Komodo Dragon - we were very scared at the thought of meeting him, but he seemed to be sleepy rather than scary!  They have poisonous saliva, which they use to kill prey - they give their victims savage bites, usually breaking bones or ripping tendons, and then wait until their disabled prey dies from the bite before eating them!  They are too dangerous even for the zoo staff to catch them, so have to be tranquilized from a safe distance!  Scary!
This was the best shot Bev managed to get of the cute red pandas at London Zoo.  The rest of the time they were hidden in the trees, and Bev and Paul wouldn't let us climb up and poke them awake so that they could get better photographs!  Doh!
Pretty bird at the zoo - we're not sure what it was, but we loved the colours. 

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