The Hogle Zoo

This morning we went to the Hogle Zoo with Megan and Shane (Megan is here visiting from Florida this week for her 8th Birthday). We arrived shortly after the opening hour of 9:00 am, which I've decided is the very best time as it is still cool, the animals overall are out and about and active, and the zoo is relatively uncrowded.

At the entrance we were greeted by a bald eagle...look at how huge this thing is!


The zoo had an exhibit called the Ghost of the Bayou that had a white alligator. This thing was huge and had these very blue eyes.


The classic "lion is eating my head" drinking fountain.

Some of the other highlights of the morning were the baby orangutan who was swinging around and having crashes every few minutes, a live demonstration on training a huge leopard in the new cat section of the zoo, and a rattle snake in the penguin cage. The last one was fun, we went to look at the penguins and they were all staying in one corner of their pen. When looking at the other side we found out why: there was a large rattlesnake settled there. Needless to say we didn't think that it belonged there, so Curt found a couple of girls who worked at the zoo and told them. When he told them they kind of did a double take, like they didn't hear him right, checked the enclosure to look for themselves, and then started scurrying around calling people on their radios...apparently they didn't think that the snake belonged with the penguins either.