Woodland Park Zoo

When our friends, the Alvoords, visited Seattle on business, there was time for a collective visit to the Woodland Park Zoo. This is, not a huge collection of animals, but a respectable one. There are, I believe, just over a thousand animals in 300 species living here. The first one encountered at the entrance to the zoo is the Humbolt Penguin, seen above.



Normally, when we go to a zoo, I'll take my Nikon and the long lens. Doing this requires determination since it is heavy. Since this outing was with a family, I took the much smaller Fuji x100s with its fixed focal length. this meant that I only really got reasonable shots of the animals near me.

An active resident in a glass-fronted case is the False Water Cobra. He/she was busy flailing away in the water for reasons I could not decipher.

In the aviary, we found the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock. This is a really spectacular bird, with a large dome on the forehead and orange feathers. Unfortunately, only the female was close enough to photograph and she is much more painly colored. Yet, she retains the unusually shaped head and the piercing blue eye of her significant other.

The gorillas were much more photogenic. Even though sitting next to the glass that divided us, S/he was content to sit and ignore me while I angled for a good shot that minimized reflections.

The last animal I could get a good image of is the Komodo Dragon. There were several in a glass fronted area that were content to pose for me. These really all large lizards.

There were other interesting exhibits as well...the Brown Bears, the Gray Wolves, the Snow Leopard, among others. But these were just not photographable with the 23 mm lens fixed on the Fuji. Perhaps on a future trip, I can grab a few more interesting specimens.