Lincoln Park Zoo - 2.16.11 - Animal Raspberries

Okay, so the weather in Chicago has changed drastically since my last set of posts.  There is no snow left under the homemade snow gauge and for the last few days the weather has been hovering around the 50's (F).

It's not exactly beach weather, but when you get a nice day in Chicago in February you take advantage of it.  I went to the zoo.  It was almost deserted.  I mean, if I ever wanted an entire zoo to myself, this was my day to have it.

Annoyingly, I grabbed the footplate from one tripod and the other tripod.  I've also discovered through chatting with someone from another blog that my camera needs to go in for repairs.  The graininess isn't from too high an ISO or something I can correct on my own.  It looks like I may have knocked my sensor out of alignment.  *sigh*  I have a shoot this weekend with a local group, and I'm annoyed that I'm going to have to make this trip with a screwy camera, but after that I'll be able to send it in for the two weeks it'll take to get it repaired.

Anyway, I decided that I'm bored making posts from zoos that just say, "Hey, I saw a lion!  I saw a hippo!  I saw a bird!" in either alphabetical order or chronological order of whatever I saw first in the zoo, so I figure you all have to be tired of seeing them.  Instead I'm going to make theme posts for this trip.

One of the things I find really funny for no particularly good reason, is animals sticking out their tongues.

So here is the animal world sending you a great big raspberry! (Or a carton full of them!)

And you thought small children had some bad habits.

A tongue to keep up with that neck.

This polar bear doesn't think much of your idea.

Doesn't care for that one either.

It seems that tongue length is proportional to body length.  First the giraffe, now this guy.

Mmm... you look tasty.

I know that last one is cropped a bit oddly, but she was eating what I think was either a deer or cow leg.  It was clearly prepped in the zoo kitchen and not nearly as gross as it could be, but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea.  I'm going to put up some shots of the carnivores doing their thing, but I want to let people opt out of viewing that if they'd like.

In the next few posts we'll be looking at teeth, eyes and feet!