Return to Lowry Zoo

Our admission ticket from back when we first visited the zoo allowed us to make any return trip for free.  Unfortunately we forgot that there were blackout dates for that offer, and had to pay a small readmission fee. We were there on a blackout day due to spring break for many schools.

Remember in my last posting I mentioned that the orangutans were under blankets?  This time one was under a piece of cardboard and another under his blankie.  In the chimpanzee pen the monkeys were swinging on their ropes wearing small blankets.  In one of my pictures, which is a bit blurred, the chimpanzee had it hanging from his neck.  He looked a bit like Superman on a mission.

I did some research on the Marabou stork, and it is considered one of the 13 ugliest animals on the planet.  I must say that they do not even enter the world looking very pretty!  We saw this African stork on our first visit to the Lowry Zoo, she was sitting on her eggs then.  It was exciting to see that the two eggs are now hatched.  By the way, this stork is like a vulture.  She has a featherless head which stays clean when she feeds on carrion.  Another distinctive feature of this animal is that, like the Andean condor,  from wingtip to wingtip she measures 10.5 feet.

Another baby born at the zoo in 2016, January 15 to be exact, is the Hartmans Mountain zebra from south west Africa.  No two zebras are alike, each has a distinctive stripe pattern like human fingerprints.  In the 1950s this zebra numbered from 50 to 75 thousand.  In 1992 their estimated number is about 8,000.

We returned to the zoo primarily for our grandson Nathan.  Unfortunately he was a bit grumpy that day due to sleep deprivation (his fault not ours).  His demeanor rapidly changed when he was able to feed two lorikeets.  These small parrots have brush-tipped tongues by which they feed on nectar.