Carcassonne 2009: London Zoo, part 1

I mentioned that I travelled to France via England, and met up with Anne Ida in London. I spent a day in the city on my own before meeting up with her and our friends that she was staying with, and I decided to spend that day at the zoo. :-) I'm not a big fan of London and I wanted to find just one place where I could spend the whole day and just more or less relax ... so I picked the zoo. Where of course I took lots and lots of pictures. :-)

From the Aquarium ... which is the oldest of its kind in the entire world, in fact. Many pretty waterscapes. :-)

And some very pretty fish, like this one. I love the colors ... and it also had a gorgeous iridescence that doesn't really show up in the photo ... but it was quite beautiful.

Some really wonderful setups to be seen ...

Raja, the zoo's Komodo dragon, Varanus komodoensis. Paz, he seems a bit lazy, doesn't he? ;-)

The zoo has added three Gálapagos tortoises, Geochelone nigra, to their collection this year as part of their celebration of the Darwin bicentennial.

Zaïre, the matriarch of the zoo's troop of western lowland gorillas, Gorilla gorilla gorilla. She was eating something and quite busy with that, so seeing her up close was out of the question.

But Effie, the other adult female in the troop, was sitting by the glass watching us watching her. Oh, look at her face, it breaks my heart. :-( I do enjoy zoos if they're well constructed and maintained, but deep down I always know that it just isn't right. :-( Except at the Nordic Ark ... :-)

A lazy tiger, Panthera tigris sumatrae. In fact they have two. :-)

Some ... pigs ... of some kind ... Wild boar from somewhere. I honestly don't remember exactly what these were. :-) But this is a pretty good shot. And it's interesting to think that our domesticated pigs probably were something like this once ... :-)

An eastern white pelican, Pelecanus onocrotalus, grooming itself.

Adult large flamingos, Phoenicopterus roseus ...

... and a flamingo baby. Aww. :-)

Feeding time in the penguin pond. The one getting all the attention is Ricky the Rockhopper ... I already posted a picture of him. He was just too cute. :-)

I mean, just look at him. :-D

This twolegs seems to be in possession of MAH BUKKIT!!!