Nin has recently posted some zoo pictures, so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon by posting some pics of our trip to the San Diego Zoo last month. We’ll start off with the meerkats, who are not nearly as cute as you think they should be:

The hippos, though, were amazing. They ran laps around the pool as we watched, as graceful underwater as the butterflies in the atrium next door.

The serval was probably the favorite of the big cats we saw that day, maybe because it was the only one that was actually awake:

The pandas were a little disappointing, because they sat with their backs to us most of the time. But still: pandas!

This is probably a baby panda, about 8 months old. But given we saw no sign of a head or paws, it might just be a very clever ruse:

Next time, we’ll have to try to get there at a different time of day, so we can see the little guy awake.

Speaking of little guys, we laughed at laughed at these baby warthogs climbing all over dad while he’s trying to have a nap. Mom’s probably off getting her hair permed.

And the opposite of little is big, like this huge polar bear, passed out by the pool. This photo was taken through glass, and I probably wasn’t more than 10 feet from him.

Look at the size of his paws! I couldn’t even get a decent shot of the whole of him in the frame, that’s how close we were. Thank goodness for the glass, though. I wouldn’t want to encounter something this big face to face, I don’t think…

And finally, proof that whatever crazy things spec fiction writers invent, nature has already made something weirder: the harpy eagle. Really, this photo doesn’t do justice how truly strange looking this bird is.

I’ll have some more pictures from our trip to the San Diego Wild Animal park in a few days.