going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

We went to the zoo yesterday.

 the rest of the family watching some birds

pelican

most of these won't have captions

 can anyone identify this kind of tree? (the blossoms are rather perfumed)

 the zoo had a large peacock convoy... and the males were all being showy

and what was the most common (by at least a factor of 20) animal at the zoo?

and they were cheeky and impertinent too... as soon as you looked at them they'd start begging. sad, really. particularly as there must have been THOUSANDS of them in the zoo's grounds.

While beautiful, i always find zoos and other enclosures such melancholy places; you can tell the animals have issues, both physical and emotional, from their captivity.

What i found saddest was a sign (which i didn't photograph) explaining that a lot of captive species at the zoo now have fewer non-captive animals left than there are captive ones, and explaining how the zoos were working together for healthy breeding practices and maintaining the captive populations without further capturing of wild specimens. yeah. so we've messed up enough of the wild that some of these beautiful and majestic animals are now more prevalent in cages than in the wild. gee. that makes me feel so good about our species and its' practices.