Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Both cattitude and I had today off from work. The only definite plan we'd made for these few days (tomorrow off as well, and yesterday, the holiday that many Americans had) was not to set an alarm, but we'd discussed going to the zoo, because it had been a while.

Forecast rain hadn't materialized by late morning, so we went out, had lunch, and went to the zoo. The first thing we did was renew our memberships, and then we looked at animals. The crowds were moderate, and many of the visitors seemed to be summer camp groups (rather than family groups); this is probably why the Wild Asia monorail was uncrowded.

I wanted to ride the monorail, which we hadn't since they opened the tiger exhibit that isn't on the monorail, because the elephants live over there now. We saw the elephants. We also saw many deer, of several kinds; peacocks displaying their tail feathers and calling loudly; and one baby rhinoceros. More evidence for "babies are cute": few people would call an adult rhino cute, even people who like rhinos, but a five-month-old rhinoceros behind his mother is cute. (We weren't the only people who thought so.)

After the monorail, we went over to the "Himalayan highlands" exhibit. The cranes who live there are incubating an egg: we know this because, when we got there, one of them was standing above their nest, so we could see the egg clearly. He (?) sat down, carefully, just after we arrived. The other crane wasn't visible, but Cattitude remembered seeing a young crane at a feeding post a few years ago, looked through the foliage, spotted the bird, and pointed her (?) out to me. [If it's possible to distinguish male and female in this species of crane at any distance, it takes a better-trained eye than either of us has.)

Then, across the road to red pandas, who were just draped in a tree, like the one we'd seen in Wild Asia, and snow leopards. Lots of snow leopards. One area had one, napping at the far end. The next had one, lying right next to the glass near us, probably because that was the sunny spot. The third exhibit area had three snow leopards, though when we got there two of them were lying close enough to each other, and the ground, that Cattitude thought there was only one, and I wasn't sure I'd actually identified two. The third was a bit more alert, and when she moved, looking as though she was stalking a bird, the other two got up, and demonstrated clearly that there were two of them. We watched all three for a while, as the first two walked over to the third, and after a moment of sniffing, all three stalked something we couldn't see. The one who had been over there first climbed a small cliff at the far left edge of their exhibit; Cattitude noted that he'd never seen one of them up there before, though it's not surprising behavior, given their native habitat. We watched a while longer, as they appeared to lose sight of whatever they'd been stalking, two of them wandered away, and one of those two rolled on its back and exposed its belly, a move that is cute even, or maybe especially, when the cat is that big.

We also had to visit the actual tiger exhibit, but didn't stay long because it was hot in the area they have set up for watching the tigers, despite huge, loud electric fans. Three tigers in view, one of which had obviously just been in their swimming pool and fish pond. (Yes, they sometimes catch and eat the fish, or at least one of them does; we learned this on an earlier visit.)

Fairy bluebirds have blue on the underside of their tails, and are generally blue and shiny. They're in one of the cages near the zoo's restaurant and flamingo pond; others in that area included really fine magpies, and silver pheasants, with long white tail feathers. It seems unlikely, but they might have chosen birds for that area on the basis of Best Tail Feathers.

We went back to the Bronx Zoo for the first time in months, to see the new Tiger Mountain exhibit. Because I was feeling ambitious, we got up at 8 and were there slightly before the zoo opened, to meet quility and Rachel at 10:30. We got a good long look at four different tigers, two in each of two areas. treadpath, screaminghippo, and two friends of theirs arrived while we were waiting for the tiger "enrichment" session. "Enrichment" in this case means the tigers are offered the opportunity to come down to where the zookeepers are standing behind a gate, to get treats, maybe play, and have their paws and such looked at. As the announcer emphasized, if the tigers prefer to stay where they are, that's fine too. One of them came down, the other stayed near her pool. (The pool has fish, of which she has hunted and eaten two in the two months the exhibit has been open--mostly she just likes to swim.) Siberian tigers sleep 15-20 hours a day, more when it's hot.

We did a bunch of other zoo stuff, especially birds. The otters weren't visible in the Children's Zoo, but that's where we saw a peahen with two peachicks, as well as the usual peacocks. I renewed our memberships--by doing it then, I could apply today's admission fees to the membership, which felt thrifty. zorinth, I have a tiger t-shirt for you; I can mail it, since I don't know when I'll be in Montreal next. I also picked up an owl feather in the Children's Zoo, and got Cattitude to take some photos of the Pere David's deer for the Wikipedia article I wrote about them. I left about 3:30, being tired and not wanting to run myself ragged; Cattitude, Quility, and Rachel stayed longer.

When I got home, I put the kettle up, then called my mother to tell her I have a job interview. We were hopeful and cheerful together. I just need to print out my resume (the version I sent them) to take with me, and make a neat list of relevant phone numbers (they said former supervisors, and since that's effectively two names, I'm going to throw in two freelance clients who've said I can use you as references). And try to get a good night's sleep.