Zoo Day.

Today we went to the Zoo! I always love going to the zoo, and the one here in Atlanta is pretty excellent. The weather was perfect--it was cloudy and cool but not rainy--and we had a great time. The Atlanta Zoo has lots of animals we've never heard of, and that I don't know how to pronounce. Here are some pictures from our day. Note: This is a very picture heavy post.

Lets start with some big fellas, the elephants.

 Boy elephant.

 The elephant couple. Great TLC show idea!

 Elephant poop. If you were wondering.

Next, lots of birds.

FLAMINGOS! Fact: Flamingos are pink because they eat so much shrimp. The pinker they are, the shrimpier (Thomas told me this fact, so if it's wrong, blame him).

 I don't know what this bird is called, but it was awesome looking and had red eyes.

This is not a real zebra carcass! So don't freak out (because I kind of did). They apparently put it in the buzzard enclosure to make them feel more comfortable. Creepin.

When I started taking pictures of this bad boy, Thomas was all "that's just a common pigeon" but turns out it was a fancy zoo pigeon and I got a great shot of it! So there.

 This is some kind of goose, but I can't remember the particulars. However, I do remember that it's the only bird with a green beak.

Next up, the animals of the African plains.

When I was a young warthog...

This rhino was drinking out of that fake log, but he stopped to pose for a picture.

Meerkats!

We LOVED the meerkats. I'm totally asking for one for Christmas! This little guy was the watcher, and he was in charge of protecting all the others.

Here's the cute little giraffe family.

This is the newest baby, Lilly.

Oh, just zebra-ing around.

One of the coolest things about the zoo was the ground squirrels that ran around everywhere. We noticed lots of them by the lion enclosure, which I thought was weird, but hey.

I had Thomas take this picture, thinking he would get the entire thing from afar. Apparently he preferred a crooked closeup? He's creative that way.

Here's a shot of the action from behind the above lion wall. Notice my hair looking awesome? That's because I finally got it trimmed today! WOOOO.

Next up, the monkeys and lemurs.

 A native Thomas monkey in the wild.

This was big papa gorilla.

He's almost 50 years old, so he has grey hair on his back. While we were watching him, he waltzed over to this tree to stare.

This beauty is called a Drill monkey, but we're going to call it "cotton candy butt." 

His face looks like he's wearing a mask. Basically, the Drill monkey is all around crazy.

This little dude was climbing on the netted ceiling of the enclosure, picking off dried leaves and eating them as a snack.

While we were watching the monkeys, a cute little one grabbed some bamboo and climbed up into the branches to eat it. This Wolf's guenon (which I call a "gweenon") ran across the whole enclosure to steal it away! Rude.

Bundle o' lemurs. This is 3 cuddled together.

One of the cuter exhibits, the sleepy lemur tree.

"Can I help you?"

 A sweet little golden lion tamarin. The pair roams freely during fall and summer months because they don't try to leave their specific area (probably because they're right next to the alligator!)

Next we checked out all the reptiles.

This komodo dragon was totally stretched out lounging.

A snake smirk.

Bush, I took this for you.

This snake was so cute! He reminds me of Verdi.

This smaller tortoise enclosure was kind of strange. It was big fence posts, pretty far apart, that allowed the turtles to look out--but they obviously couldn't ever escape. We wondered about how many have gotten stuck trying over the years.

Old grandpa tortoise. We wanted to take him home to help us keep our grass trimmed. The way he ate reminded me of this guy:

Source

Kangaroos are cool!

Probably the funniest animal of the day. This huge kangaroo scratched at the ground and then grabbed his tail and started chewing on it.

Then he climbed a tree. He's obviously on drugs.

Here are the miscellaneous animals that I don't have multiple pictures of or know how to categorize.

This sun bear (which just so happens to be Thomas' favorite bear) was sleeping HARD.

Tiger cub! Sadly we couldn't get a good picture of the mom tiger.

Here is a big weird pile of naked mole rats and vegetables.

Fact: Naked mole rats grow hair on their butts. Here is the proof.

This cutie is called a Muntjac. Which I pronounce Moont-Jack.

RED PANDA! We love these guys and were so excited to see one in person. We think Jack looks like a red panda:]

I can't remember what this thing is called. But it's a something dog. And it's really cute.

Finally, the most popular exhibit at the zoo, the pandas.

Dad panda.

BABY PANDA!! This little one (Po) was born this year!

Cool panda stamps.

I'm sad that I didn't get a picture of my most talked about animal, the Kori bustard, which I pronounce Kory Boost-ard. It's just so fun to say! We had a great time at the zoo, and I'll be posting about our other adventures soon!

-T, K, J, & C