A Day at the Zoo – part 1

Map of Berlin Zoo

 

Now that the days are getting brighter and longer, I´m up again for wandering around. At the end of March we had very nice and warm weather (not so much now – it´s like winter has come back to show us that he´s not a sissy), and as I own an annual ticket for the Zoo I thought, why not go there and enjoy a beautiful day with wonderful animals!

As you can imagine, I made hundreds of photographs some of which I´m going to share with you in two or three posts as I´m taking you with me on a virtual walk through the Berlin Zoo.

We start our walk at the Lions gate in the west of the Zoo, near Bahnhof Zoo (see map above for details).

If you turn sharp left, you´re welcomed by one or two rhinos, mostly occupied with eating huge amounts of hay and other yummy stuff. This one clearly showed the visitors what it was thinking of us 😉

 

A rhinoceros´ behind

 

So I turned back and was greeted by much friendlier and gentle elephants, posing perfectly for my camera.

 

Asian elephants

 

Right between those two areas there´s quite a big hill that has been build for the Siberian ibexes. Most of the time they blend perfectly in with the boulders and it´s a bit difficult to get a nice picture of them. This young one though did me the favor to stand perfectly against the foliage of the trees in the back.

 

young Siberian ibex

 

We follow the path that leads to the always well-heated Giraffe´s house (a bliss on  cold days!), but as it is a sunny and mild day, the giraffes don´t mind having a snack outside.

 

Reticulated Giraffe

 

On the same terrain lives a pair of ground hornbills, beautiful birds that are extremely clever and playful. Give them a ball and they have fun with it the whole long day. Maybe they´re secretly training for the German national team 😉

 

female Abyssinian ground hornbill

 

Further along the path that leads to the south we reach the house where the monkeys live. I´m very fond of gorillas and was lucky to catch a glimpse of a young one looking pensively into space.

 

young western lowland gorilla

 

Also in the monkey´s house you can find one of my very favorite animals: the sloth! In this case, it´s a two-toed sloth (in contrast to the three-fingered one), and we´ve got a pair now in Berlin and are hoping for cute little baby sloths. If we´re lucky, you can bet that I´m going to stand before this enclosure a whole day!

 

Two-toed sloth

 

Some of the next pictures show you nice examples of doting love which is accurately termed “Affenliebe” (monkey love) in German, emphasizing the touching care and love these animals show so obviously for their young ones.

Observing scenes like this, how could anyone doubt that animals do have feelings? I´m always absolutely baffled when confronted with people who believe in the absolute superiority of humans when it comes to emotions and feelings – how very, very ignorant they are…

 

Old world monkey female with baby

 

young monkey

 

Outside of the building there´s a another hill of boulders made for the baboons. I can stand here for hours and watch them play or chase each other, or practicing fur care and thus intensifying relationships and bonds with each other.

 

Hamadryas baboon male

 

 

Hamadryas baboon female with baby

 

This picture is a bit out of focus but it´s one of my favorites I made that day.

 

Hamadryas baboon female with two babies

 

Thank you for joining me on this walk and I hope you´ll look forward to the next part of my day at the zoo! Then we´re going to see all kinds of bears and Polar Wolves!