We went back to Artis on the weekend with a friend who we haven’t seen in months! It was a lovely way to catch up and spend the day together, running around like lunatics with cameras! If we continue going to Artis at this rate, we may as well just get annual passes!
There had been news reports earlier in the week that this is the second warmest Winter on record, and all the animals and plants were getting confused. I think this was illustrated really neatly within the walls of the zoo! There were blossoms blooming, and animals behaving like rabbits! (It was hard not to get photos of it really …) But I shall spare you all that, as the weekend we decided to end up at the zoo was determined to be the first real cold snap of Winter. Oh yeah. This meant layers and layers of clothing people! I may need to finally shop for actual winter clothes. Let’s hope I can still find some in the shops!
But on with the photos!
Many of the animals who were outside looked like this …
… huddled for warmth.
All in thick, fluffly, winter coats.
I’m including this shot of the otter because I’m in shock that he held still long enough for me to get a photo! It’s an otter after all!
All the big cats looked like they needed big warm snugly beds to curl up in. My own cats have obviously trained me well!
Being as cold as it was, we spent a fair amount of time in the “houses”. We started in the small animal house, which we had been shooed out of the last time we were at the zoo, when they found us still in there after the zoo had closed!
We then wended our way to the bird, reptile, and monkey house where you could walk around in amongst the vines and trees with the animals there with you! (So difficult to restrain yourself from reaching out and patting the tiny monkeys!)
This bird strongly reminded me of the dinos in Jurassic Park the way he looked out from behind the plants.
So many of the birds were complete cam whores who posed beautifully for our cameras!
But it was outside in the cold where I found my holy grail! We had missed them the last time we were in the zoo compound, but I got to see my flamingos!
The poor blighters looked FREEZING! They were all squished together and reduced to football shaped! I took so many photos! I’m hoping these will be inspiring for my painting later this week!
The meekats came out briefly when they heard us.
But disappeared just as quickly when they discovered how chill it was out of their house!
And though there was lots of “animals thinking it was spring” going on, this blog is child friendly, so I’ll just put here this photos of the stags fighting it out for dominance!
It was a wonderful day out, and though we have now been to Artis twice, we still have yet to see everything is has to offer! We shall just have to resign ourselves to going back again. Oh the hardships of our life! 😉
ghoti industries 