Grizzly Bear – Woodland Park Zoo

02. July 2012 · Comments Off on Grizzly Bear – Woodland Park Zoo · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Recently I visited Northwest Trek which is a wildlife park for animals that are native to the Pacific Northwest.  While there I saw loads of herbivores but all the scary “interesting” animals were hiding.  I guess the point of Northwest Trek is to see animals in their real habitat, where they have loads of places to run, play and hide.  And they hide very well.  So all in all it was a bit disappointing.

So you can imagine my surprise and delight when we went to Woodland Park Zoo and saw some of the carnivores we missed at Northwest Trek.  Now a lot of people say that zoos are cruel, that the animal cages are too small, and it’s wrong to cage and display wild animals.  Well all that may be true, but you get much better pictures.

Joking aside I feel the same way, you get the impression that all the animals are either “very sad”, or quite mad.  There is a lot of pacing up and down and I did feel bad for them.  But the Grizzly enclosure was quite large, it had a cave and small stream for the bears.  I guess the question is how much work towards conservation and animal safety and rehabilitation does the zoo do.  If a number of the animals are rescued I guess it’s better than being injured or worse.

The bear in the picture below was walking back and forth (pacing) between it’s cave and the edge of the enclosure where I captured this shot.

The guys wanted to play Mancala tonight.  Master Chief was doing rather well, much to Carters disappointment.

Patas Monkey – Woodland Park Zoo

01. July 2012 · Comments Off on Patas Monkey – Woodland Park Zoo · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Today’s image was also taken at Woodland Park Zoo and I have to say it’s probably my favorite.  Not necessarily because it’s a great picture, but more because it was hysterically funny.

We saw this Patas monkey pretty early on while walking around the zoo.  Apparently these monkeys are also called Red Guenons and stem from all over Africa.  They are mainly ground-dwelling primates and like to live in open bush and the grass savanna.

So what was it about this monkey that made it so interesting, what was the joke?  Well, kids joke that monkeys throw poo, but apparently that’s not all they do with it!  This one was pulling chunks out of its bottom and scoffing the lot.  He even licked his fingers after.  I was literally laughing out loud – Lisa say’s I’m too loud and can be embarrassing but come on, this wasn’t my fault.

There were a couple of Patas there, this one, eating lunch, and another sitting on top of the rocks watching.  I took a few shots but favored the tighter version showing the monkey nice a big in the frame.

Families would walk past and kids would stop and stare.  When the mums realized what the monkey was doing they grabbed their kids and pulled them away.  This somehow made it even funnier.

It’s also worth pointing out today that I’m officially half way through the year, yes today is day 183 our of 366.  So only another 183 days to go.

Master Chief was playing with a slap (or snap) bracelet this afternoon and got stuck!  So Carter helped him out.

Lion – Woodland Park Zoo

30. June 2012 · Comments Off on Lion – Woodland Park Zoo · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

This is definitely an interesting New Years Resolution.  It’s got to the stage now where it’s pretty much all consuming, I think about pictures and post topics all the time and have lots of people providing ideas to help.  This morning I got up pretty early for a Saturday, had some breakfast and sat down with Abi for 20 minutes.  Anyway I fell asleep and woke up 3 hours later – what a waste of a morning.

I had intended to go to a farmers market with Lisa but she let me sleep and everyone kind of left me alone.  When I woke they all said, “well that’s the day over”, but it was only 12:30.  Desperate for a picture idea I convinced the family to go to Woodland Park Zoo for the afternoon.  The sky was cloudy but it was warm outside (around 70 degrees) and reluctantly they agreed.

So around 1pm we headed out (it takes ages to get them all moving – say’s the guy who slept till noon), Lisa, Abi and James, and James’ girlfriend Alex and I set off.  Of course as we hit the road it started to rain, but undeterred we carried on to Seattle.

We decided that if it was raining when we got to the zoo, we would find somewhere else to go, but we were lucky as when we got there it had just stopped.  While we had black clouds over us all afternoon, it was still warm and it only rained for 5 minutes later in the day.

The zoo wasn’t too busy, obviously the possibility of bad weather kept the crowds away, and we had a really great time.  I took around 850 pictures in total, and will get out of them possibly 5 or 6 shots that I can post.  That may sound quite low but I take around 40 of the same animal and no matter how many come out I can only really post one lion (it would be a little boring otherwise).  If I get 10 pictures I will consider myself really lucky.  We were there for 4 hours and if I can get 2 pictures an hour I class it as a valuable “Picture a Day” trip.

Tonight’s image is a lion – duh.  When we got to the lion’s enclosure I didn’t expect to see anything as they are usually asleep and hiding.  But this male lion was sitting there posing for the camera.  He was pretty far away but fortunately I have some nice glass and got the shot below.  I’m really pleased with this one, animals can be really hard to capture and I’m not very good at it, so I’m classing this one as a success.

Now I should say here that I had planned a zoo trip with a friend from work (Chris) so he is gonna’ be mad when he reads this, but the whole afternoon was so good, I’ll go again with him next month.

This evening Master Chief decided to work on his camouflage skills, Carter helped.

Washington Mutual Tower – Seattle

29. June 2012 · Comments Off on Washington Mutual Tower – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

OK this is a weird one.  I took this picture the other day of the Washington Mutual Tower and I kind-a like it but don’t know why!

I don’t think there is anything special about the building, I mean it’s not the tallest in Seattle or anything (it’s the second) and to be honest it’s not even called the Washington Mutual Tower anymore, it’s actually called the “1201 Third Avenue” (but I like the old name more).  Although some people call it the “Spark Plug” which is kind of funny I guess.

The image was shot just after the sun went down and the lights in the building were on.

So what do I like about the image? Well the building is a cool shape and symmetrical, which I think looks good.  It has loads of windows that make a cool pattern (I’m struggling aren’t I?) – I like the little square box on the top.  Anyway, I liked it enough to post.

So what about the building?  Well apparently it’s an office block and was built in 1985, it’s 772 feet high and the 60th highest building in the US.  That’s all I could be bothered to find out.  Oh and it looks cool against a dark blue sky.

Cater found today that he likes Goldfish, quite a lot!

Harbor – Seattle

28. June 2012 · Comments Off on Harbor – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

This is my last picture from the harbor in Seattle – well at least for now, I can’t promise I won’t go back.  I posted the the ferris wheel the other day and that was on the left hand side of the pier.  This shot was taken on the right hand side, looking back towards Seattle.

The boats moored at dock are vessels from the Argosy fleet right next to pier 55.  The boats were rocking from side to side and you can see this as the mast of the sail boat has a lot of motion blur.  This happened as it was getting dark so I had a longer than desired exposure.

In the far distance is Centurylink Field which is the stadium that’s the home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders (that’s an American Football team and a American Soccer team for any Brit’s who read this).  Just out of shot past Centurylink Field is Safeco Field the Seattle Mariners stadium – our baseball team (I figured I should mention that too so people know we have all three).

While I was there a few people came onto the peer to take pictures too.  It was kind of funny as I’m there set up with my tripod and huge camera bag taking loads of pictures and people walk up, pull out their iPhone, take a snap, look at it and say “awesome” and then walk away!  They must think I’m nuts as I was there for ages.  There was one other guy there with a camera on a tripod who was there when I arrived and was still there when I left.  His camera was pointing in the same direction the whole time and he was sitting there waiting – I’m not sure what for but I couldn’t be bothered to wait and see or ask him.  I was happy with my 150 pictures.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll move onto something else.

Master Chief decided he didn’t know his seven times table, so Carter was helping him with flashcards.

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