Category Archives: Photography

The New Rocky Shores Exhibit and More From Hogle Zoo

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My local zoo recently opened a new “Rocky Shores” exhibit, which was enough of an excuse for me to go again and take some more pictures. The new exhibit, which houses the sort of animals you might see at various points on the Pacific coastline, including otters, seals, and polar bears, is a pretty sweet set-up, particularly with the various underwater views it offers. Hogle Zoo is a very small zoo and I remember it from my childhood with a kind of horror — it wasn’t that awful and I remember the animals being in good shape, but it was a small zoo of its era, complete with big cats in little cages, the elephants on a nearly featureless concrete pad, and other habitats completely unsuitable, and going there on school field trips kind of put me off zoos in general for the next ten years — but I’m incredibly pleased with the efforts they’ve made since to update the zoo and improve the exhibits for the animals. Rocky Shores is a step in the right direction, and the concept drawings for the African Savannah exhibit they’re planning to open in 2014 looks quite good, as well. I have very little commentary to offer, but I did take a lot of pictures of the new exhibit and around the zoo in general, so I should like to present them without further ado:

 

On Mondays, We All Need A Hug

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I was flipping through a few photos today from my last visit to Hogle Zoo, and came across a few that seemed appropriate for a Monday, in that they are cute, fluffy, and made of snuggles. So without further ado, I present some awwwww therapy.

Meerkats understand the value of hugs.

The brown bears were sleeping in a comfortable pile. I would’ve felt an urge to climb in and join the mass snuggle if only they weren’t bears. I know better than to get close to bears since they’re normally #1 on Stephen Colbert’s Threatdown.

Bat-eared foxes are probably the cutest of all foxes. That one on the left has a case of the Mondays.

A Walk Through Red Butte Garden

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I believe that you good people were promised more photos from my ridiculous adventures in birding at Red Butte Garden, and never let it be said that I failed to deliver. Plant photography is not exactly my specialty and despite there being actual signs pointing out what most of the plants were, I could not be bothered to take notes (I was too busy failing to see birds). Luckily, all that means is that I can’t bore you with interesting plant facts or something and must instead simply give you the photos and walk away. Which I shall now proceed to do.

This Is Why I Prefer Animals That Are At Least Car-Sized

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Back in the days of yore, when I was just an idealistic young student taking my first conservation biology course, I remember my professor bemoaning the state of modern conservation. People, she said, were only interested in “charismatic megafauna” — all those big, popular, well-known animals that you expect to see in every zoo ever, like elephants, giraffes, lions, wolves, bears, tigers, and so on. I guess having a problem with this is a lot like being a biology hipster, but I could see her point; while donors pour millions into conservation and research for a handful of these “popular” species, hundreds or even thousands more are much more desperately in need of aid… or even just in need of understanding. It’s tough to raise money for the conservation of a spider because people hate spiders. It’s tough to raise money for the conservation of a jellyfish because, as we all know, jellyfish are the enemy. Try telling people that you want to save the monkfish and they’ll run away screaming. I mean, once you show them a picture. Nobody knows what a monkfish is right off the bat except maybe monkfish enthusiasts, if such people exist in the first place.

Still, I think there are perfectly valid reasons for scientists and animal lovers to choose their favorite species the way they do. Take E.O. Wilson, for instance. When he was a boy he suffered an unfortunate accident involving a needlefish and its close proximity to his eyeball which left him blind in one eye. Naturally this would put anyone off the study of fish, and Wilson’s passion for ornithology was rather nixed when partial deafness set in during his adolescence. (It’s kind of hard to find birds when you can’t see them because your depth perception is screwed up and you also can’t hear them laughing at you from their treetop perches.) He turned instead to entomology and became the world’s foremost expert on ants and a pioneer in the study of insect sociobiology, among other things. And all because birds weren’t an option.

This slightly laborious story is all in aid of explaining why I myself tended toward the study of rather large animals: because it’s difficult to study something you can’t see. In school I took an interest in ungulates — wild horses specifically, but also elk and moose and bighorn sheep and generally just anything with hooves because I find them kind of marvelous — mostly because they’re awesome but also, in part, because it’s easier to study something when you can actually see it. Despite an early interest in birds — no doubt springing from my early obsession with dinosaurs — I always knew that I was never going to be an ornithologist, or even a hobbyist birder, because while other, normal people would point to the sky or a tree or whatever and delightedly exclaim over some bird they saw there, I could only squint, perplexed, seeing nothing and wondering whether they were just messing with me. My own childhood brush with blindness was not — thank you nature — courtesy of a needlefish; rather, I was mysteriously struck blind and, after a period of time spent calmly baffling medical professionals, I just as mysteriously regained my sight. This episode was, apparently, as damaging to my eyes as you might expect, and it’s the reason that today I’m not the sort of person you’d want to join your badminton team. Without my glasses, I can see things fairly clearly at a distance of about six inches from my face; beyond that, it’s all impressionist painters. With my glasses, I’m at least legal to drive, but if you expect me to help you read street signs from a distance, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Of course, I’m not a big believer in limiting myself based on things like reality, which is why after I got a membership to Red Butte Garden here in Salt Lake and discovered that this meant I could do things like free birding walks, I was all over it. A nice walk in the garden with my trusty camera and a bunch of other people who have nothing better to do on a Saturday morning? SIGN ME UP. Oh, and please capture the birds so you can hold them very close to my face.

Now that I have been birding, of course, I am extremely knowledgeable. This is a… uh… Blue-Headed… Something.

Apparently hummingbirds like to hang around right at the very tops of pine trees. Who knew?

The nice thing about birding when you are not even remotely a birder is that you get to be delighted by things you probably shouldn’t be delighted by, like this robin who apparently is also a tradesman of some kind, judging by the way he’s building things. Around the fifth time everyone stops to see what you’re photographing, only to find it’s a bee or a robin or a flower, they finally realize you’re an idiot and stop paying you any mind at all. It’s only a shame it takes them so long.

This next animal proved to be a testament to my fellow birders’ kindness and patience toward their fellow man. The conversation with one kind soul in particular went something like this:

Me: I don’t see it. Where is it?
Her: Okay, do you see that sort of bare area in the middle of the tree, where you can see through to the trunk and there aren’t any leaves?
Me: Yes…
Her: Focus on that, then go directly to your right. He’s on that main branch, right out in the open. Really easy to spot.
Me: ….
Her: He’s bright yellow.
Me: Er….
Her: Okay. Do you see the bare area on the tree?

We went on like that for a good five minutes until the bird himself, clearly exasperated, relocated himself essentially to the front and center of the tree, offering us a fantastic view of his yellowness, at which point it took me probably another five minutes to finally see him. I told my long-suffering new friend that obviously I hadn’t been able to see him, there are leaves on that tree bigger than that bird. And he’s more creamy than bright yellow. I mean, seriously. He looks like a delicious well-toasted marshmallow, is what he looks like.

I was going to declare a moratorium on trying to spot any bird smaller than a pelican, but then this guy flew right in front of me, like he was trying to help a girl out. Thanks, angry-looking eyebrows bird.

FINALLY, some birds I can actually see. And as an added bonus, they’re cute and fluffy. You’re a pal, momma duck.

We saw several more birds at a distance, which for me personally was not very helpful, but whatever. This one looked like maybe a finch to me, which I only guessed because I’d seen Darwin’s sketches of course, but I was assured that it was not, in fact, a finch. I have no idea what it is. I hope you weren’t expecting this anecdote to end with some sort of useful information.

My favorites were the most obvious birds, like this quail, because at least on those occasions I could name the bird and indulge for one brief moment in a magical fantasy-land where I wasn’t completely clueless.

Of course, just because I had no idea what I was talking about and indeed no real idea of what I was even doing there among those very enthusiastic and keen-eyed birders, didn’t mean I was outside the reach of good fortune. While the rest of our company were gazing through their binoculars at some distant thing that as far as I could tell was a pinecone on top of a shrub, I wandered off a short distance down a side path to take some more pictures of flowers, as you do, and then I heard that tell-tale hum and turned around to see this kind gentleman stopping for a snack about two feet away from me.

Hummingbird, you are an officer and a gentleman. Or at least you would be, if it were possible to be those things while also being a bird.

Sure, he might’ve been super-tiny, but at least he recognized my handicap and got right up close… I actually had to step back to put him in focus with my zoom lens on. I might be a frustratingly awful birder — in fact, I think I might take up an interest in elephants, mostly because in order to study something bigger like blue whales I’d have to go into the sea and there are jellyfish in there — but every now and again, at least, fortune chooses to smile on me.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, with more photos from Red Butte Garden, this time with flowers and bees and… well, that’s pretty much it actually. Flowers and bees. But both of those are pretty much rad.

Horses! Kilts! OMG Horses! (Or, Why The Renaissance Faire Is Awesome.)

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The title of this post might be a little bit misleading. Not because there aren’t horses and kilts — I didn’t take pictures of said kilts, though, I’m sorry, I was too busy ogling the men in them — but because I have my reservations about Ren Faires. When I turn up at one I kind of feel like a Trekkie at a Furry convention. I might appreciate and understand the enthusiasm and extreme fannishness of those present, but I am not One Of Them. While I enjoy A Game of Thrones as much as the next girl (Peter Dinklage, how are you so awesome?) and am actually a medieval history fan from way back, I mostly just find Ren Faires kind of awkward. My default reaction in these sort of cosplay situations is to find an appropriate huddle and start talking Doctor Who while pretending that nobody in the conversation is actually dressed up as a Stormtrooper, but when everybody who greets me calls me “my lady” (or more frequently, “my lord,” which is great for my self-esteem, thanks a lot), and when sometimes people say things like “doth” in a serious and straight-faced way, it just makes me realize that I am in the wrong crowd. I begin yearning for the fjords regular old Highland Games events that are much more in my wheelhouse. (There are several of those coming up in the area over the next few months, though, so expect plenty of photographs of kilts in this blog’s future.)

Still, it’s nice to get out and mix with those outside your social circle and specific niche of geekdom, and events like this are a jolly good time. The Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire (click that at your own risk, because it will play music at you whether you like it or not) has been on for the past couple of weeks here, so I decided to give it a go, primarily because of The Knights of Mayhem, a full-contact jousting troupe I had last seen a few years ago in Arcata… I blogged about that over here, in case you missed it and/or wish to look at pictures of pretty horses again. They also have a show on National Geographic Channel, though I’ve never seen it on account of not getting that channel. Sadness.

Anyway, I really thought the jousting was the best part, so here are some fun jousting photos. What I notably did not get are shots of the actual impacts, though you can see a few of those on that previous blog I mentioned. I had a great idea to try this time standing in a spot where I could look down the list to get photos of the horses charging right at me, but completely failed to factor in that there would be squires at the ends of the lists to help stop the horses after each charge. Good going, me. Anyway, here are some guys on horses.

You guys, I have a serious crush on this horse. SERIOUS. I mean the guy’s okay and all, but LOOK AT THAT HORSE. LOOK AT IT.

I quite liked this one too, but not with the kind of burning passion that I liked the other one. This horse is Daisy (her full name, we are told, is “Daisy the Destroyer, because her opponents will be pushing up daisies!” har de har har), and she is clearly a Belgian, and that guy riding her is Jason Armstrong, and he is clearly a Canadian. You can tell because even when he’s talking smack he’s polite about it.

A little love for the ponies. You might notice that the bay shire in the background (I think they called her Lady Chaos?) is being ridden by two different guys in these photos. The armored guy pictured riding her is “Sir” Edward, and this guy is one of their knights in training, who also wanted to have a go when they were playing their skill-at-arms games with the spear-throwing and whatnot.

They all had pretty decent aim with their spear target practice. I can guarantee you that I would miss. And probably fall off the horse. Look, they run REALLY FAST, okay?

Daisy is new to jousting and was not very keen on setting herself up in the list. Actually, she tried to take down the list several times. And thought about taking down some spectators, too. I was marveling at how the crowd wasn’t moving out of her way until suddenly they all scrambled for cover, and then I lol’ed. Is that bad?

OMG THIS HORSE. She’s a Shire, by the way. In case you were wondering. And considering forming her fan club.

The way these huge horses just ROCKET themselves down the list, I would probably soil myself. I’m man enough to admit it, I’m just not man enough to do anything this insane. Look at this horse, she’s just like, “Screw this, I AM GOING TO RUN NOW OKAY.”

Daisy the Destroyer seems to be aware that she’s very photogenic.

This is seriously the only shot I got in the vein of what I wanted, which was pictures of the horses charging RIGHT AT ME. Don’t worry, I had a really big zoom lens, I wasn’t going to get anywhere close enough to be actually charged at.

I have some more photos of the festival, including some snaps of the Oak Hills Vaulters kicking ass and taking names; you can find those over here on Facebook (and you don’t have to be a Facebook user to see them).

Salt Lake’s Hogle Zoo in Photos

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I’m not going to lie: I am a seriously annoying person to go to the zoo with. I can stand around and take photos of animals forever, not to mention all the time I can spend trying to find the right combination of settings to shoot pictures through a fence or in a low-light environment. I’m not exactly a technical wizard. Still, it’s nice to have a few photos to show for it, and at least I can rest assured in the knowledge that, while my family may only occasionally tolerate me, at least the people of the Internet understand. Here are a few of the best photos from a recent trip to Utah’s Hogle Zoo. I hadn’t been to the zoo since I was just a wee bairn and I was delighted to find many of the exhibits updated and some fantastic-looking new sections under construction to open this summer.

Tigers: totally regal and stuff.

It’s sleepy-time in lemur-town.

This Pallas Cat was super-cute. It’s a Mongolian wildcat and apparently it likes to play hide and seek with the keepers and freak little kids out by trying to pounce on them through the windows. You go, Pallas Cat.

OMG WHAT BABY MONKEY. So cute, you guys, seriously. This is a Bolivian Grey Titi Monkey. Even its name sounds cute.

Speaking of Titi Monkeys, the adults are also freaking awesome-looking. And the males are the primary caregivers to the young, which is also fascinating. That’s pretty much my zoo-going default mode: I wander from one exhibit and one sign to another exclaiming, “That is FASCINATING!”

Here’s that tiger again, showing off his impressive teeth.

I got the feeling that this was possibly an evil giraffe. “I will eat all of the leaves on this tree. I will eat more leaves than I should… so that other giraffes may die. Mwahahah!”

Just in case you haven’t seen it, here’s Eddie Izzard’s bit on evil animals: EPICNESS.

Bat-eared fox? AWESOMESAUCE. I wish to snuggle it.

This is a spoonbill. I have really nothing witty to say about it.

This langur has the best hairdo ever seen on an animal. EVER. Both mohawk and muttonchops? You, sir langur, are truly a sir.

And in conclusion, here’s my favorite shot of the day: a little tamarin. I got a few nice shots of these guys because the light coming in through the windows in their exhibits caught beautifully on their golden fur. So cute, tamarins. So cute.

We had the good fortune to visit Hogle Zoo on a beautiful, cool spring day, and although there were about a million children there — and the bird show was cut short when the golden eagle went a little AWOL and couldn’t figure out how to get himself back down into the show area — we had a pretty awesome time. I can’t wait to go back to see the new exhibits when they open… but I’ll probably go alone, so nobody has to put up with my incessant photo-taking.

Here There Be Sea Monsters (And Also Snuggly Little Otters)

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As you may recall, I am in general not always a big fan of creatures of the sea. Jellyfish, for instance, are at the top of my personal Threatdown list. But there’s more to an aquarium than jellyfish — and the lure of otters is too strong to resist — so today some family members and I took a field trip to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, Utah. I haven’t had much of a chance to practice my low-light and zoo-ish photography, so I brought my camera along (with apologies to my awesome long-suffering sister-in-law, who has to put up with this same nonsense from her husband all the time) and managed to get a few shots I quite liked.

I want to get one of these frogs and carry it around on my shoulder at all times. It looks like it's really wise and might enjoy advising me on how best to conduct my business.

These Lion Fish are actually venomous, but they were also pretty good about showing off for my camera, so I guess they're not just straight-up jerks.

The aquarium itself was a bit of a disappointment — their interpretive signs left much to be desired, and a great many of the animals’ habitats were both small and overcrowded, with some of the views obstructed by slightly grimy tanks — but it was about what I expected from an aquarium of its size, especially considering that looking at the building from the outside it appears as if they converted an old K-Mart or something. I have to applaud them for having done as much as they have with the space they’re working with, but it’s clearly not the best possible situation. Luckily, a brand new aquarium building is in the works, with 130,000 square feet in Draper and what looks like a much more purpose-built and animal-hospitable building. Currently they’re planning to break ground this summer with a possible opening as early as spring 2013. I can’t wait to give the new place a try when they’ve upgraded their facilities. For now, if you’ve been to SeaWorld it’s not going to even remotely impress you, but if your aquarium experience begins and ends at the pick-your-own-crustacean tank at Red Lobster, then you’d probably find all of these exhibits incredibly diverting and educational.

They had several kinds of sea horses, which was awesome, but the leafy sea dragons were apparently hiding -- or just so good with their marvelous pretending-to-be-a-bit-of-plant-matter disguise that I couldn't spot them -- which was super-sad.

These piranhas were particularly super-awesome... those gold-colored flecks are just incredible. I wouldn't want to take a swim with them, though.

OMG OTTERS.

In case you've ever wondered what an otter looks like while it's pooping, this is the answer. YOU'RE WELCOME. It occurs to me that this always seems to be the pose that taxidermists choose to put stuffed otters in, which makes me wonder whether that's some sort of bathroom-related inside joke among taxidermists all over the world.

Here is a photo of a jellyfish. Jellyfish thing. I don't even know. I'm just showing you this so that you can identify the enemy.

Here is the obligatory NEMO! moment. Now that we've gotten that over with, we can move on to the serious biznis.

Like for instance this eel. Eel-thing? This is definitely serious. I couldn't find a sign saying what sort of eel this is, but I'd guess it's a giant moray. And thanks to Google I've discovered that eels gape their mouths open in this very threatening-looking fashion to help them keep water flowing through their gills and help them breathe. Rad. Also rad? That frilly corral-looking thing at the bottom left is a wobbegon, which in this case seems to mean a shark disguised as furniture, and it was chilling out with a huge eel so it had instant street cred. Tank cred?

This lobster is apparently over 45 years old. That kind of depressed me for reasons I can't really explain. Also, he's totally pretty and blue, which made him seem rather decent for being a cockroach of the sea.

I'm not really that into fish, but I did like the frogs. They were incredibly colorful and also adorable.

And speaking of adorable, here are a couple of Axolotls. I had to Google that to make sure I was spelling it right. What would I do without Google? Probably curl up in the corner and cry.

I don't know what this is, which is why I'm calling it a "gecko-y thing maybe" like that is its official taxonomical classification. My brother says it's a newt, which is probably the case, but "newt-y thing" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

I was surprised at how well some of these photos came out, considering my camera is not exactly the latest in DSLR technology and it was really quite dark in there. This last photo, of a sleeping green tree snake, is one of my favorites from the day. (That first frog shot is definitely the other top pick.)

I’ve been having a great time lately finding occasions to visit some of the local attractions here in the greater Salt Lake City area… it’s sort of fun to make yourself be a tourist in your native land. Keep an eye out for more posts and photos from around town as I continue to endeavor to get myself out of the house….

Born to Be Free

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You won’t often hear me talk about rodeo. A big part of the reason for this is that, as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that it’s both useless to tell other people how to conduct their lives, and it’s foolish to spout off opinions on subjects you don’t know too much about. I don’t feel like I know hardly anything anymore, and my life’s become a richer thing since I started asking to be taught instead of arrogantly insisting that I already knew all I needed to know. In my experience, that kind of conviction often exists in the void left by a lack of real knowledge and experience. The world exists in a million shades of gray, and even when you’re certain of yourself, it’s still important to acknowledge the reality that you’ll never bring anybody around to your viewpoint by laying in with your spurs or trying to whip them toward the finish line.

So while I might not like the way I see a lot of people ride at the rodeo — just like I might not like the way I see a lot of people ride in Grand Prix dressage — you won’t hear me talk much about it. I might also wish that more equestrian sports rewarded softness, feel, finesse and the health of the horse instead of simply performance. I might cringe to see a horse hurt or a calf bowled over or a kid pinned beneath a steer, but I understand that even in the best circumstances accidents happen, and I don’t think that every rodeo should be judged on the basis of the kind of wanton cruelty and careless carnage that some rodeos call sport. My point is, I would normally have very little to say about rodeo, because I feel it isn’t my issue, my cause, my fight, or my world to be commenting on. But tonight at my little local small-town rodeo, I saw something that I do think of as mine. I saw these.

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If you don’t know what you’re looking at, I’ll be glad to tell you. The white brands on these horses’ necks means that they were wild horses, once. At some point in their lives — probably late in their lives, and I make that assumption for reasons I’ll explain in a moment — they were rounded up by helicopter and brought into captivity.

I won’t get into all of the arguments, politics and opinions surrounding the wild horse issue. There are whole books on the subject, and in this particular post it’s not the point. The fact is, these horses came in from the wild and they weren’t going to be put back again. They could’ve been adopted into private homes, but it’s unlikely they were even given that chance. The large white “U” you see clearly at the end of each brand — a match to the smaller U that you can’t see at the beginning of each brand — means that these are “sale authority” or “Burns amendment” horses. Simply put, sale authority strips away protections or sale prerequisites from wild horses who have been judged to be over ten years of age, or who have failed to adopt at three events. These horses, from the look of them, were probably deemed to be sale authority animals on the basis of age.

saleauthority_grandmotherThe fact that they wound up as bucking stock on the small-town rodeo circuit isn’t illegal or even frowned upon. It is within the government’s right to dispose of them as they see fit. You can walk away with one of these horses for a low, low price — I’ve seen them sold for a dollar — and then if you want to put it on the next truck to Mexico to be turned into horse steaks, you can do it. I know all that. I don’t agree with it, but I know it.

Still, walking up to those pens and seeing those brands on the horses was like a punch in the gut. Perhaps they were younger than they looked, but to me it was like stumbling across a group of grandmothers who’d been pressed into service as gladiators. It felt demeaning in a way that I still can’t entirely explain.

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But then,  that feeling itself isn’t necessarily rational. I eat meat, and those animals on my dinner plate undoubtedly suffered worse. The domestic horses in that bucking horse collection had clearly been through the wars, too; one seemed to have more branded flesh than unbranded, and another had a bleeding wound ripped into his hind end, most likely from the constant miserable fighting going on in the pen. But it was the presence of mustangs there that for me stung the worst. This wasn’t the life they’d been meant for. Their dignity was gone. And knowing that they’d fallen here from freedom seemed somehow almost unbearable to contemplate. Better perhaps than the other souls penned with them, they knew what they’d lost.

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Though they’d spent most of their time in the pen with their ears pinned back, warning all comers not to venture too close, once the stock contractors brought them out for a mad run around the arena, you could see a little spark flare. Their ears came forward, at least some of the time. They moved as one unit, as if they’d never held each other at bay. And they stretched their legs out like if they could only run hard enough, they could fling themselves into another life.

The rodeo announcer assured us via loudspeaker that bucking horses love their jobs, that they perk up at the sight of the chutes. He also assured us that this stock contractor’s fine animals were ranch-raised, and came from long lines of bucking horses.

He said that they were “born to buck.”

Presumably, this was supposed to reassure the crowd that there was nothing unsavory about the evening’s entertainment. But I watched one of those sorrels gallop past me, with the wind picking up its mane, and the neat white brand beneath gave the lie away.

Herded back into their pens again, the horses only stared into the far distance, and kept their silence.

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