Patawatomi Zoo

Are you zooed out yet? Not this family! Never mind the drama and trauma of Katelyn's staph infection, we wanted to hit another zoo this summer. This time we visited Patawatomi Zoo in South Bend, just an hour from us. Dylan and a friend went with us this time. Three zoos, three different sets of guests.

It's a smaller zoo than the ones in Battle Creek and Toledo, but our admission was free, and the drive is short. So, by the end of the day, we felt we spent our time well.

Just as soon as we entered the zoo, we met the tigers.

The Amur tiger was pretty lazy, and was totally indifferent to us. However, we got a huge thrill out of the White Bengal Tiger. It's not albino, it's naturally brown and white. It paced back and forth in front of the glass shield, and made little growling noises as it rubbed its huge teeth against the shield right in front of me.

We finally got to see some lions. The lions in Toledo were all lazy and sleeping. The two male African lions were resting, but alert and looking around. They appeared to be placid and content, but I know that is deceiving. On a moment's notice they can be man-eating killers.

The two chimps had their own little island.

They have a unique Australia exhibit. Visitors can walk amongst the animals in a little field. You can see kangaroos, wallabies, emus, and black swans. The roo's and wallabies did not get that close to us, so the thrill was so-so. The black swans were anti-social and hid in a depression almost behind their little pond they shared with a host of domestic ducks.

However, the emu gave us something of a thrill. While Heather and Katelyn were trying to get a shy wallabies to come out and play, a curious emu walked towards us, and then started to walk behind Heather. I told her to turn around slowly, as I did not want the creature to scare her by biting her hind-end. She was grateful for the warning, and was a little nervous as the giant bird came within a couple of feet of her.

The snow leopard was a lazy bum. He peeked out of his house and fell back asleep. However, the Amur Leopards gave us all quite a thrill. There is a baby one, only a few months old. However, he is more than big enough to play roughly. He and mommy entertained us all by chasing each other around and wrestling. It was a rare treat on such a hot day when the big cats were mostly content to stare right back at us.

The first time we went past the red panda exhibit, we just assumed they were hiding in their shelter. We could not find them. Apparently, they were up playing in the trees. That's where we found them when we passed again.

I do not like the way this picture turned out at all, but it gives you an idea as to the exotic color of this yellow frog. I've never seen anything like it!

I tried taking pictures of the Japanese Koi, but that did not turn out so well. However, the reflection of the trees overhead makes for an interesting photo nonetheless.

Do you like it when snakes stare at you?

I managed to take some good photos of bees that day. They were not part of any exhibit, but they loved all of the flowers around the zoo.

Oh, while we were there, one of the monkeys actually managed to escape, and I was able to get a good picture of it before the zookeepers managed to capture it and put it back.

I have a few more pictures that I will share tomorrow. However, you can enjoy these two Facebook albums here and here.

buck on 07.28.08 @ 09:24 PM EST [link] [No Comments]