Toronto Zoo Visit

Right out of the parking lot of the Toronto Zoo, there were a few birds roaming around. This one approached us expectantly, perhaps hoping for a few crumbs of food? We didn't bring any, so it turned away as I decided to take a picture.

Another picture of the goose. That's a grumpy-looking seagull in the background.

Inside the zoo, we decided to see the pandas first. There were a pair of fraternal twins (a male, Panpan, and female, Yueyue) born to the mother panda at the Toronto Zoo half a year ago. Here is the mother with one of her cubs. We were still in line here so you can see other tourists taking pictures.

The line to see the panda cubs led outside again. It was cold (37 degrees Fahrenheit) but the sky was clear. I took a picture of S because nothing else was around.

By the time the line moved back inside, the mother was rolling around under the structure with one of her cubs while the other one was asleep in the corner on top of another structure.

I don't know what to call these things made of wooden logs, but the mommy is still underneath, hugging her cub close to her.

I think she was feeding her cub some milk? Not sure though.

See the cub?

Now surely you see the panda cub!

Then I was looking at the sleeping one, hoping it would wake up. It didn't.

However, the sibling that was with mommy then crawled to the bank of the structure and was selecting bamboo.

Here you can see both panda siblings.

Last shot of the panda cub (in back) and mother (in front) before we were shooed out by the zoo people to make room for another group of tourists taking pictures.

Meanwhile, the father panda (Da Mao) was chewing his bamboo outside. The mommy (Er Shun) was with her cubs inside.

So outside, we decided to take some selfies with the panda in the background...

which was tricky to angle,

as you can clearly see.

So we took pictures of each other and got the panda in the background, although he looks rather small from where we took the pictures.

Then we moved on to the Eurasia exhibit, where we saw these four camels,

this falcon,

this owl,

and these animals called tur(?). The fur of these animals are light golden and may have inspired the  Greek legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece.

Here there was a life-size statue of a double humped camel. We both climbed on it for fun.

Then we found an Australian wildlife pavilion, heated inside, to escape from the wind and the cold outside. This selfie was taken in front of...

the habitat for a sleeping tree kangaroo.

After a while, it perked its head up,

and though it was awake, it stayed in its snug hammock for the time being.

Also from Australia, we have this fantastic bird who wasn't afraid of getting close to visitors.

It did its strut...

turned around...

and walked away from us,

and was preening its feathers for quite some time while we moved on to other birds.

This one was quite cute. Maybe they caged it because they were afraid that it would fly outside the pavilion?

Then there were reptiles, like this lizard whose name I've already forgotten.

But this one is a komodo dragon! Also it appears quite lazy right now, it's actually a fierce predator of horses and cattle!

Coral reef aquariums sporting cute tropical fish.

Sea horses taking a nap!

Sole sea horse wandering around the tank instead of sleeping =P.

Next we saw a pair of lionfish.

At least this one was still enough for me to take a picture of it.

More moving lionfish!

More tropical fish. I think the one at the bottom is neat, because its belly has polka dots!

The movement of these jellyfish were so tranquil, it was like watching a Windows screensaver.

After exiting the building, we felt hungry, and ducked back inside the tree kangaroo's place to consult our maps because it was so cold outside!

I think I heard a zoo person say that the tree kangaroo is still getting used to its new home, which seems to be the case since for the rest of the time we were inside this place it had its back/butt turned to visitors.

Food would come after seeing the Arctic tundra animals. This is a picture of sleeping wolves. 

And here was the skeleton of a bowhead whale.

Well, we decided to have a beaver tail instead of sitting down to a proper meal, partially due to the fact that most of the eateries inside the zoo were closed! And the nearest one that was open was still far away. The beaver tail was a warm pastry topped with sweets: people in front of us ordered oreos and cream, cinnamon with sugar, and etc. The one I ordered was Skor cheesecake, although cinnamon with apple was tempting as well. Skor is a brand of chocolate here in Canada, and the caramel and cream cheese with chocolate chunks dripped down to our hands and the picnic table as we ate it. It didn't taste like cheesecake, really, but it was delicious and wonderfully warm considering how hungry and cold we were.

After the beaver tail, we moved on to see the polar bear cub. It was playing around with some balls and then with this tree trunk.

I couldn't get a really good shot of it, however, because of this fence. =(

Until I noticed that there was another place I could take pictures of the cub through glass. I'm not sure what it was doing here.

Here the cub is sitting down and seems to be fishing with a stick =P.

More pensive "fishing"...

aw, it turned its head to look at us!

then lost interest in us and looked away again.

Then it decided to get on top of the log and look around.

After pausing just long enough for me to take this picture, the cub loped away so we moved on.

Can you see the mommy and daddy polar bears? Feeling lazy, they were sleeping and looked like boulders.

We spotted another polar bear sleeping on top of a hill.

Arctic wolves again.

A snowy owl.

It got injured in one eye but was still quite attentive/alert.

Reindeer!

Also, a pair of geese!

Scarlet bird perched on top of some lush foliage. The red to the upper left is not another bird, but some flowers.

Apparently this bird was the scarlet ibis! Title of a short story read by many high school students in America.

Some spectacled owls.

I spy with my little eye...how many birds in this picture?

Python. S was into snakes at some point.

Some pheasants below...

sharing their space with these apes above.

Golden lion tamarins.

Can't remember what these monkeys were called.

Can't remember what was in this picture.

Large octopus in a tank.

My first thought was "polka dot manta ray", but this was a freshwater stingfish of some kind.

Piranhas!

Bird.

Can you see the three tree frogs?

Can you spot the poisonous tree frog? (Hint--it's blue.)

Well camouflaged snake.

Salamander!

Adorable Canadian otter!

Canadian otter swimming.

Wee three turtles.

Some pheasant bird that follows humans around inside its little enclosure. Was it hungry, or angry that humans were there? Was it protecting its territory?

And here, it's penguin feeding time.

See how cute they are!

Last picture of the penguins. The red in the picture was the reflection of my scarf.

Here we have sleeping lion and lioness.

Here we have a cheetah basking in the sun. As before, it's not possible to capture both humans and the wildlife in the same picture.

So here was the selfie...

and here was the cheetah.

S posing with the cheetah.

Me posing with a statue of a baby hippo.

Giraffes walking around.

Why is this one nudging the other one's rump?

Rump nudger looking back at us with its wide, innocent looking doe eyes.

The patterns of various species of giraffe.

Some species of African bird.

Large African lizard.

Large lizard--take 2.

Friendly wandering bird.

Yup, another selfie.

Hey, more turtles! These four have huge domes for shells.

Very colorful bird.

River hippopotamus coming up for air...

and holding its breath underwater...

and coming up for air again.

Majestic birds (wish I remembered to take a photo of their name plate). Apparently these have some sort of religious connection and are revered in parts of Africa.

Chameleon.

Meerkat climbing out of bucket. These little fellows just seem to love digging around.

Hundreds of fish were in this tank! These are fish found in African rainforests.

Gorilla feeding time.

Can you see that tiger? It's the Sumatran variety.

This one prowled around for a couple of seconds, then disappeared inside a building. Doesn't like visitors, I guess.

Made S take a picture with this wise-looking ape.

Wow, aren't you the prettiest duck!

I was actually able to get close to take this picture.

But since a kid popped out from behind you and scared you away, you jumped into the water and swam toward those logs.

Some birds opposite the water?

Wow, more ducks perched above the door!

Freshwater fish of Malaysia, pt 1

Freshwater fish of Malaysia, pt 2

Some or all of these fish are becoming extinct in the Mekong River.

Turtle breeding center!

Bird walking away.

Other bird, kind enough to hold still for pictures.

This python was over 20 ft long!

Turtle in the water, ape on the monkey bars! =)

Alas, the zoo was closing. We missed the baby rhinoceros and by the time we got there, the cloud leopards were already caged and not available for viewing.