petardier

Here's a nice close-up of Kanga at the Phlladelpia zoo. A little too bright, but the focus is great and the reflection from the glass, at least on her face, is minimal.

The rental Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens I used for this was a wonderful lens. Very tempting.

From PicasawebWillNotLetMeShare

Kanga and Lucha later in the same bout. Eventually she nips his throat. Neither seemed damaged afterwards.

From PicasawebWillNotLetMeShare

Another shot from the Philly zoo.

From PhillyZoo

I'm always impressed by how big and puffy their tails are.

Young jaguars seem irrepressible

From PhillyZoo

but it turns out you can repress them by flipping them over and sitting on them for a minute of two. This is a fact that mother jaguars use to their advantage.

The Stone zoo's female jaguar, Kanga, was relocated to the Philadelphia zoo earlier this year. She had a cub there in June.

PhillyJaguars

It's always fun to watch jaguar cubs, but the most vivid part of this visit was the bird incident. There's two photos from that sequence here. Somehow, a bird had gotten into the jaguar's enclosure. It's covered with wire mesh, so a bird couldn't get in there without making a deliberate effort. There might have been something wrong with the bird to begin with since I never really saw it leave the ground after its initial appearance. Anyhow, the bird opted at first to remain still. This was smart as the jaguars didn't pursue it right away. Kanga did, however sniff and pat at it. This scared the bird into running for cover under a pair of logs. At this point, the hunt was on. Both jaguars were very intent on getting the bird out of its hiding place. At times, it looked like Kanga was holding back to give Lucha a fair chance to catch it himself.

Eventually, the bird's luck ran out. Kanga caught it and chewed it up rather messily at the back of the cage. I've include one shot from that sequence, but haven't enlarged it.

From the Franklin Park zoo. The light was very low in the ocelot enclosure plus I was shooting through a glass window with all the possibilities of smudges and reflections that entails. Despite these challenges, the photo came out ok.

From Web Stuff

Still mining the photos I took with the rental camera.

Jaguars get crusty eye boogers too.

From Zoo_PA

Taken at the Elmwood Park zoo in PA. The blurry areas in this photo are probably due to it being taken through a chain-link fence. If conditions are right, you can mostly hide a chain line fence that's between you and your subject. It seems to help if you're closer to the fence than your subject is.

A bit blurry, but it shows that Kanga still has some moves that the kids haven't picked up yet. She jumps right over them when they get too rambunctious.