I went to the zoo Friday to see the new baby gorilla. Asha, one of the troop, gave birth on August 14, which also happens to be my parents’ wedding anniversary. Apparently zoo staff don’t know the baby’s sex, and s/he doesn’t have a name yet. But s/he is pretty darn precious.

When I arrived in the primate house, Asha was right by the window, nursing the baby. The way she cradled him/her was precious. The baby looked up a couple of times, right at me, but because of the smudgy glass and my smudgy lens (which is getting cleaned tonight; I bought solution this afternoon) I didn’t get any good photos. I loved the baby’s little ear; it looks so human. The adult gorillas have them too, but I guess I’d never noticed before.*

*Edited to add: Of course I knew they have ears. I’d just never noticed how human-like their ears are.

There were a bunch of zookeepers and/or volunteers hanging around various exhibits, and as usual, I learned some cool and interesting things from them. For example, appearances to the contrary, this gorilla isn’t actually flipping anyone off; she injured her middle finger somehow and can’t bend it.

I also found out the zoo is home to three tigers (I’d thought there was only one). Below is the matriarch, Helga; her daughter Zoya and a male, Grom, were in separate areas in the back of the zoo.

Apparently tigers are solitary, which I didn’t know, and even though the exhibit area is enormous, they prefer being by themselves. The zoo is hoping to breed Zoya and Grom, but although she’s ready, he isn’t. “He doesn’t quite know what to do yet,” is how the zookeeper put it, “and she gets really annoyed with him.”

The mountain lions were eagerly anticipating their dinners, so eagerly that they were growling and even roaring a bit. I felt like prey, as I do whenever I’ve been around just before they eat. In fact, the only time I’ve had the sensation that an animal was sizing me up as potential dinner is around these mountain lions. It’s both adrenalizing and a bit scary.

Also watching the lions were a man and a young woman, presumably his daughter, who had cerebral palsy. I stuck up a conversation with them, and the man — who, it turns out, has volunteered with the mountain lions at the zoo — told me one of them always stalks his daughter. It’s only one, always the same female, and he thinks it’s because of the cerebral palsy. This is particularly interesting, he said, because the lion in question (whom I believe is the one pictured above; I can’t really tell them apart, and he said it took him awhile to differentiate them too) is going blind. She’s not old; in fact all the lions on exhibit are litter-mates, but something’s wrong with her eyes.

The afternoon light was really spectacularly gorgeous. Above is the sarus crane.

I’d never seen a wallaby sit like this before, but the keeper tells me it’s quite frequent.

And, just for the heck of it, here’s a photo of the colorful stuffed snakes. Last time we were at the zoo, my nephew insisted that he NEEEEEEEEDED one. Why? Because he NEEEEEEDED it. Unfortunately for him, no one else agreed.

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I also returned to the new reptile gallery, of course. I was determined this time to get the best shots I possibly could of the various residents. Not all of them came out well, but I was pleased with at least some of the results. I really was going for the level of detail shown in some of the photos on the walls.

I have a good camera, but I don’t know if it’s quite good enough. And, as I mentioned, the lens has some smudges. And shooting through glass is difficult anyway because of smudges, reflections, and angles of light. But I’ll stop complaining now. Here are some of the shots with which I’m happiest:

Closeups of Oustalet’s chameleon, above and below.

Long-tailed lizard, below:

And, although he’s not actually a denizen of the reptile house, my good buddy Boudreaux, the Komodo dragon:

Last time we were at the zoo, my nephew — who is quite fond of Boudreaux — said, “I’m going to roar at the dragon. ROOOOOOOAAR!” Boudreaux, on the other side of the glass, took no notice, but my nephew turned to me and said with the supreme self-confidence of a small child, “He is scared of me.”

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I’m beginning to have mixed feelings about posting photos on my blog. I’ve never been too concerned with people stealing them, but as I become more serious about photography that issue has at least crossed my radar. And then I’m not even sure what “more serious about photography” means, especially with my chronic inability to market myself and my insecurity at underselling myself when I try.

More of an immediate concern is that I’ve just discovered that I’ve used more than two-thirds of the uploads WordPress allows. The solution is buying an upgrade that costs far more than I can afford at this point.

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Speaking of things I can’t afford, I closed my book-swapping account yesterday with great reluctance. I hadn’t been able to mail books since April, and I’d accrued a pretty lengthy list of packages I was supposed to send out but never could. My phone’s been off since July, although with two freelance checks arriving Friday, I’ll be able to remedy that shortly. Pets need to be fed, litter has to be bought, and prescriptions must be refilled; none of that stops just because my income drops to negligible. Oh, and the student loan people hate me, but I’m still somehow not eligible for any kind of deferment.

Anyway, I finally decided that instead of spending money that I won’t have, for the foreseeable future, on postage fees that were adding up to more than $100, I’d just apologize to everyone to whom I owed books, return their credits, and bow out as gracefully as I could. I enjoyed the book swapping, but it was kind of a crap shoot; a few times, I’d order a book described as a very good hardcover, only to receive a badly beaten-up paperback. Once the very good hardcover actually turned out to be a battered paperback with black mold all over the last 20 or so pages. But I also got some gorgeous books in pristine condition and found titles I’d been wanting for years, some of them out of print. If I ever reach a point of solvency, I’d probably do the swapping thing again.

For now, though, I have no shortage of books to read. For the next several years, at least, I’ll have no shortage of books to read. Maybe I’ll even blog about some of them.