Dublin Zoo: my first real live giraffe experience, and the beginning of a fear of squirrels

Kalen and I took a trip down to Dublin Zoo yesterday, and it's a pretty freaking cool zoo. They have all kinds of animals I'd never seen before in real life because they couldn't survive in Winnipeg. It even seems like it would be a little chilly for them in Dublin, but apparently they do alright. There was lots and lots of animals with babies, so that was pretty exciting.

Like in Winnipeg, they have peafowl randomly wandering around. Only they're not this friendly in Winnipeg. Maybe these ones are just younger and dumber. I was taking pictures of them, and I was able to get so close, if I had just reached out my hand, I could have touched them. But I didn't. I didn't want to press my luck and risk getting my hand taken off. Those beaks look pretty sharp.

There was a family of peafowl.

A Mummy



A baby



And a Daddy. Love those colours.







Unlike Winnipeg Zoo, there were also herons wandering around wherever they pleased.



There were lots of monkeys, chimps, marmosets, and lemurs. Apparently there were gorillas, but we couldn't see them. And there were baboons, but we couldn't figure out how to get to them. We could see their wicked tree house, though.







Chimps! They were pretty exciting.







That tail is crazy. It's like an extra hand.



Lazy lemurs





I love how he sits with his little feet crossed. Very cute.



I think gibbons are my favourite monkeys. They always look like they're deep in thought.





Elephants! The elephants were very tricky. They have a huge enclosure, but you can only actually see them at certain points along the path, and there are signs up at these points telling you to sit and wait patiently for the elephants to come, but nobody did. There was a whole bunch of people (including Kalen and I) who kept running up and down the path trying to find the elephants and get a good view of them. We finally caught up with them.





The little baby one was so cute. He had to run just to keep up with the other elephants, even though they really weren't moving very quickly.



He looks so happy here. :)



Apparently these elephants are rather hairy. They kind of look like they're all wearing wigs.



I <3 zebras.





Bongos are pretty cool too.



I can't remember what this guy is called, (an oryx?) but you could take out an eye with those horns. Yikes.



Giraffes! Very exciting. You hear about how big they are, but it doesn't really sink in until there's one standing two feet in front of you. They're like dinosaurs.





This one came right up to us. It made me feel very small.



There was a big flock of flamingos.



The babies sure were ugly.



I had never seen hippos before in real life either. They were pretty terrifying. They were massive, and would stay under water for a long time and then suddenly jump up and spit water everywhere. Basically what I'm saying is that I wouldn't want to cross one.



Same story with the rhinos. I had never seen them before, they were huge and scary, and I certainly wouldn't want to cross one. The two on the right kept fighting each other.



The baby was pretty cute though.



They had sea lions! They were very very loud.



There was a pack of wolves.



And a pack of African hunting dogs. They're much more interesting.



Look! Their snow leopard was actually awake! I don't think the snow leopard at the Winnipeg Zoo has ever been awake. It's probably just stuffed.



This lioness was very lazy.



The tigers were the coolest because they were very active. The big male kept spraying the glass where we were standing. It was gross. I didn't take pictures of that.





I sure do love my camera. I actually took these pictures.





There were also some animals there that I didn't even know existed. It freaked me out a little bit.

This is some sort of African wild pig. It's quite possibly one of the funniest looking animals I've ever seen. Thinking about it from an evolutionary standpoint...how do you even end up looking like that?? Unfortunately, they were very difficult to take pictures of, as their pen wasn't very well lit. But you get the general idea.



Basically, they were pigs, but with bright orange wiry hair, big floppy goblin ears, markings on their face to make their eyes look HUGE, and naturally occuring mutton chops. WTF?



Then there was these things...

From far away, when they were sitting down, we thought they were wallabies. We were pretty excited to see wallabies. Upon closer inspection, they didn't quite look like wallabies...



Then it stood up and freaked us right out. It has no tail, and four skinny legs that it uses to sort of walk/hop. It was very very confusing.



Turns out, it's called a mara, and it's a cavy. That's right, my friends, this is a GIANT guinea pig. It was quite large. It probably weighed close to 35 lbs. We decided they were too freaky and we didn't like them.

Another thing I don't like now...squirrels. They're evil. We were walking along, and this squirrel startled us because he jumped onto the garbage can. I took his picture, and then he disappeared into the bin and I leaned over a little bit to see what he was trying to do in there and he suddenly leaped out and tried to attack me. I screamed and ran away and now I don't like squirrels anymore. For serious. It was going to eat me. Look at that evil face.



And that was our trip to the zoo. We didn't even get a chance to see everything, so we'll have to go back another time. And you're all coming to the zoo with me when you come to visit!