19 August 2012

Not the usual otter

African spotted-necked otter.

No idea why it's looking quite that morose, but, hey, how often do you see a morose otter?

05 August 2012

Some austral duck

Another non-penguin from the penguin pool.  (The penguins were either hiding from the heat in the deep shade or rocketing about under a couple of metres of water; either circumstances made them excessively challenging photographic subjects.)



The DA200 has its limitations, but down-sun it's really quite splendid.

04 August 2012

Such a marvellous bird

What used to be the fur seal enclosure at the Toronto Zoo (which I keep wanting to call the Metro Zoo, since that's what it was before Toronto got amalgamated) is now a penguin exhibit, the fur seals having gone to the aged critter home.

To keep the penguins company, there are a bunch of other austral waterfowl, including some Great White Pelicans.

03 August 2012

Seeing in darkness

The Clouded Leopard (I think there are two; there's definitely only one in the picture) at the Toronto Zoo have an enclosure at the back of the Malaysian Woods building, next to a tank of snakes and back of a space full of birds and butterflies.

In respect of their crepuscular nature, the enclosure is dim, draped with frondy, trailing vegetation, backlit (windows to daylight), and coated all over with dimming film (with bubbles, which means there are strange diffracted colours every where in the background of the original image), which means that the above image, pulled out of the perceptually much dimmer RAW camera image, represents more detail than I've ever seen in there with bare eyes.

So, yeah, technically dubious picture, but I'm happy about it.