At the Zoo

Today, I took the MonkeyBoy to see his closest relatives. Sadly, the spidermonkeys were behind a chainlink fence, so the pictures we took are only good as personal reminders - more chain than chimp, I fear. We did encounter other pretty cool critters, however.

A rabid camel (or maybe we interrupted while he was brushing his teeth

A sandhill crane, which bit Conal just as I was saying "Watch out, they bi..."

We don't like sandhill cranes any more. Fortunately, no blood was drawn.

A baby capybara

A vulturine guinea fowl

Do not adjust your monitor - they really are brilliant cobalt blue, with blood red eyes. And they eat wasps. I've been trying for years to convince my parents to get a few of these for their cabin.

The rare long-necked scratching post

And a native species, the grimy-faced icecream eater

Yet another reason why Vancouver is a great place to live

The berries are ripe already. Admittedly, it's a salmon berry, the most flavourless fruit known to man. But still ...

And a final pastoral image, just because I like it