Third Time at Taronga

A few days after my first 1Cover Thursday I treated myself to the Taronga Zoo! It was a very nice day to take the ferry there, and I got a few more touristy shots of the harbour in better weather. Here’s the bridge.

And the botanical gardens/Opera House shot.

I made it to the zoo and immediately took the “Sky Safari” lift thing (kind of like a chairlift) up to the top (it’s all on a slope overlooking the harbour), catching some nice topside views of the elephants along the way.

My first stop was the Australian exhibits, of course, since I still hadn’t seen very many animals yet, with the exception of the ones in the wildlife shows. The tree kangaroo was dozing, but the nocturnal animals in the nightlife house were getting fed, which was pretty adorable. The bilbies were bouncing around, the possums were clambering over each other to lick off honey and nibble on corn, and the echidnas (both varieties) were lapping up something that looked like watery peanut sauce with their very long and narrow tongues (such cuteness!). There were also some cute hopping mice and a spotted quoll, and some teeny gliders that were literally bouncing off the walls as they raced around to steal each other’s food. They were really good at running along the glass, but when I saw one stop suddenly, it started to slide, so the bouncing must only work while running. I lingered in the night house for a long time, hoping to see a pademelon or a bettong (so far the only animals that were hopping were the mice) but they don’t have them there anymore I guess. It was still very adorable.

Sadly, the rest of the zooventure was not as thrilling. It was pretty toasty and many of the animals were imitating these lazy kangaroos.

I didn’t take that many pictures of the animals since it was my third Taronga Zoo visit and I had too many pictures from the last time I was there, but I did see sleeping koalas, dozing Tasmanian devils, and not-so-spirited budgies, cockatoos, and other cool birds that were hidden behind mesh. I didn’t see any wombats, which was a bummer, but I enjoyed watching a platypus swimming (it was going in a circle over and over again, like a hamster on a wheel). They have lots of exhibits where you can walk through, surrounded by the wallabies, kangaroos, and whathaveyou, but you can’t get close enough to touch them unless they wander by willingly (unlike some other wildlife places). I got a quick stroke of an emu’s back and came close to reaching a wallaby but otherwise I was just watching. Here’s a cute parrot from one of the avian enclosures.

And here’s an adorable echidna snuffling around in another “walkthrough” enclosure. Look at that cute face!

Of course the Australian exhibit is my favourite, but they’ve got a lot other animals as well. There were sleepy big lions and tigers, and the snow leopards were entertaining because they were actually moving around. The elephants and giraffes were nice to see (from ground level too) and the reptiles were cool, although about as responsive as the koalas (no frilled lizards, unfortunately). They have a ton of different primates, which is impressive since they’re hard to keep. There were gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys (love those guys!), and some other monkeys in the rainforest section. They were each fun to watch in turn, but my pics didn’t come out well. I couldn’t resist getting several photos of the meerkats (there’s just something about cute burrowing animals!) digging around.

I also saw a little spoonbill poking in the water. I have a soft spot for their silly-looking beaks.

 

I was so excited to see the little penguins, but they were only in this one area, for some reason (maybe there’s a swim-way somewhere that they can cross). They are so adorable, though, and were swimming back and forth in this one long narrow tank. I didn’t bother trying to get a fast-motion, underwater shot, but I did get a pic of this other bird that looked kind of like a booby (but I forget which exhibit it was in, and what it was – I don’t think it was one of the Australian ones, but it was cute anyway).

Overall, it was a very pleasant day, and I saw lots of animals, although I was slightly sad not to see the wombat (we bonded last time I was there). Hopefully I will see all the Australian critters in the wild soon, at least the diurnal ones, and with any luck a wombat will turn up as well (the only well-known marsupial I didn’t see last time I was here). Here's one last shot of the view from the Zoo.