Saturday, June 26, 2010

INDIANAPOLIS ZOO TRIP

The second day of our trip away, it was cooler and humidity was not so high - a good thing, since we spent the day at the Indianapolis Zoo along with about 500 kids in various summer camp outings!!

The best part, for me, was watching the meercats do their thing. They were so cute and came right up to you (a glass in between, of course) to watch you as you were watching them. They'd run around, then flop down and have a rest.


I couldn't resist sneaking a shot of this little girl, her face pressed to the glass, totally delighted with the little critters.















They must have a pretty good breeding program at the Indy Zoo. There were plenty of young ones and the polar bear was pregnant (I just thought she needed to be on the diet until someone said she was going to have a little one).


The male yellow hornbill had romance on his mind: he'd catch a bug and try to feed his mate, getting her interested and showing her what a good provider he would be. She wasn't interested, although she kept going into an area where there would have been a nest - if she was so inclined. Poor guy kept trying, but she'd just twist her head away and pretend he wasn't there.




























They had a very nice marine display, too, with penguins and sea lions and walrus and dolphins. Harder to get a good shot of any of those since they were the most popular areas for the camp groups.
And now...back to painting!

7 comments:

jgr said...

Oh, you got some great pictures! Thank you for sharing--I love meerkats, too.

Christiane Kingsley said...

Great pictures, Rhonda, that will provide you with inspiration for the weeks and months to come.

debwardart said...

I like the Indy zoo better than Cincy - you can get closer to the animals - we had a photo of my daughter pressed up against the glass at the polar bear exhibit with the polar bear's head resting on the other side! (Wonder where that photo is now???) Do they still have the tigers and their stream? and that fountain at the entrance - the kids used to love that!

RH Carpenter said...

Meercats are so much fun, aren't they, Jane?
Christiane, I don't normally paint animals but that little girl is tempting.
Deb, they have a water park area for the little kids who get really wet and scream and carry on - is that what you mean? They have daisies that spray water and things with buckets that tilt water down on them. They were all having a blast. The tigers were hiding most of the time...our tigers at the Cincy Zoo are better - we have 4 of them now and Jerry's gotten some great shots of them playing.

Carol King said...

Your animal photos rock! I love the meercats. We have some in our zoo too.

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks, Carol. I enjoy the meercats - they aren't too active, lying around most of the time - but they are so cute you still want to watch them and see if they'll stand up for you :)

Teresa Palomar Lois said...

ENVYYYYYYY!!!!!