Zoo are you

It was a beautiful day to be at the zoo. If you have gills.

It was very wet, ranging between sprinkles and a decent rain. But not lots of crowds so that was good. First up were the bighorn sheep.


Where I got this great picture of a garden variety duck.

Around the corner is Stellar Cove. The sea lions were underwater at this point, so pics of them will come later. Next to the sea lions are the otters. My favorite part of my day at the zoo, as it turned out, because this cute little guy was out and about, playing with toys, frolicing in the water....

....and, as it turns out, chewing on his penis. It cracked me up, because, not shown here, are some pictures of the otter playing with a milk crate that had some floats in it. Then he would dive underwater, come back up and play with some other toys, dive back down, then float around on his back. And he started chewing up something on his tummy. I had been there for a bit at this point, watching him play, and I couldn't figure out when he'd picked up something to eat. And I'm looking and looking.... and finally realize he's not eating something, he's doing some very personal grooming. If you look really close at this next picture --

--you can see there's something bright pink in his mouth. That would be an otter rocket. Yes, it would. So then I'm standing there (taking more pictures, 'cause the big white evil bunny in my head made do it -- we're thinking it's this year's Christmas card), laughing to myself at "Otters Gone Wild", and other people are coming up to the exhibit. They're saying "look, how cute, he's chewing on something", and then they get real quiet as they realize just what he's chewing on.

No, these pictures never make the zoo brochure, do they? They like ones like this, of Mr. Polar Bear.

More to come!