Milwaukee Zoo 2013

I have been to many zoos within the U.S., and I must say that the Milwaukee County Zoo ranks in my top five. What started out as a mere 2-hour visit turned into a 5-hour adventure. Milwaukee's zoo looked like a huge forest preserve with a zoo thrown inside. It is very open, full of tall, tree-lined walkways putting you in a real zoo frame of mind. The exhibits are close to, and across from each other making the animals easy to get to, and most importantly, easy to photograph. The highlight of my adventure were the two African female elephants. They gave everyone an exciting display of doing whatever it takes to get those leaves from the top of those trees. I loved them! It was also interesting to watch two male Peacocks, "flutter" their wings in an attempt to attract the female. After about a five minute display, she just kinda looked at them like, "Whatever"!, and walked away leaving them fluttering for real. Another interesting moment was watching the Hippopotamus "mark" his territory in his pen. I have seen this many times on NatGeo Wild, but never thought I would be actually photographing it. Witnessing this was something else, as we had to duck and run for cover. Why? Because as the hippo "marks" his territory, its tail swiftly spins around causing the "waste" to fly all over the place! Interesting to watch and photograph, but very messy! But all of the animals I photographed in order, were the African Spurred Tortoise, Warthog, African Female Elephants, Reticulated Giraffe, Peacocks and Peafowl, Black Rhinoceros, Tapir, Bactrian Camels, American Badger, Grizzly Bears, Black-handed Spider Monkeys, Harbor Seal and Sea Lions, Moose, Dall Sheep, Brown Bears, Hippopotamus and the Eastern Bongo. There was also a White Rhinoceros skeleton on display on the lawn near the Eastern Bongo. The significance was to represent the plight of the five species of Rhinoceros still in existence.