Monday, November 21, 2011

Taronga Park Zoo

Recently Taronga Park Zoo had a voucher in the Sunday paper for two-for-the-price-of-one. I quickly bought extra papers because the zoo admission is rather expensive and I hadn't been for a very long time. So I've been three times already though not caught up on the blogging.

We had a perfect day for it. The zoo is on a hillside overlooking the harbour with the bridge and Opera House across the water in the distance. The giraffes have a wonderful view.

Next we visited the elephants. There were two mother and baby pairs, but, just becoming accustomed to drawing animals, we learnt that they don't always cooperate. They stood in the shade some distance away with a posture that said 'no portraiture'.

Going to the zoo brought back nonsense rhymes and songs I learnt in my childhood, and some of them made their way into my sketchbook.

We just missed the gorilla keeper talk, which was probably a good thing, as the zoo was stroller city that day, and the shrieking can become a bit wearing. The gorillas posed nicely for us. I like 'The Thinker' there in the middle. The one on the top left was the boss, though his expression was less benevolent that it looks in my sketch.
From there we had lunch on a lawn with a beautiful orange tree just begging to be sketched. After lunch I found my very favourite animals of the whole zoo - the ringtail lemur. This little cutie came and sat right in front of me, with his paws up against the glass partition. There are five lemurs (all boys and cheeky with it) and I could watch them all day. They walk around with their tails held up behind them like question marks. Just amazing. John Cleese seems to be the patron of all lemurs, and there are some amazing clips of him in Madagascar with lemurs on youtube.