We spent one of the days with my parents at Monarto Zoo – one of my favourite zoos.

Hyena Pup - Monarto Zoo

Lioness lazing on a mound of dirt - Monarto Zoo

Lion enclosure panorama - Monarto Zoo

Cheetah enclosure panorama - Monarto Zoo

Giraffe enclosure panorama - Monarto Zoo

Adelaide Rosella (wild) - Monarto Zoo

I got some good photos – although I still need to practice my technique more for taking photos of birds in flight … difficult subject!

Zebra - Taronga Zoo

Wedgie - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Juvenile Andean Condor with a "Miner" problem - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Juvenile Andean Condor comes in to land - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo - Taronga Zoo Free Flight Bird Show

Leanne and Andres at Taronga Zoo

Leanne and Andres with the elephants at Taronga Zoo

Luk Chai and Thong Dee at Taronga Zoo

Rainbow Lorikeet (wild) at Taronga Zoo

I’ll eventually upload some more photos to the Taronga Zoo gallery on ZooChat.

Was a great day – nice weather – and I managed to get some great shots, especially at the Free Flight Bird Show.

Himalayan Tahr - Taronga Zoo, best seat in the house

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo - Free Flight Bird Show - Taronga Zoo

Wedge Tailed Eagle - Free Flight Bird Show - Taronga Zoo

Fennec Fox - Taronga Zoo

As usual, I have uploaded other photos to the Taronga Zoo Photo Gallery on ZooChat.

This is a lovely little zoo where they focus mostly on Australian native species, along with a few select exotics. Their specialty is reptiles and spiders – they have an impressive collection of both that makes it well worth the visit. Unfortunately for me, photographing the spiders and snakes is not typically an easy task – so I don’t really have any great shots of them.

They also have a large collection of Australian birds and some of the more iconic Australian animals like Tasmanian Devils, Wallabies, Wombats, Dingoes and more. There is a large lake full of Alligators, and a couple of smaller ponds with Saltwater Crocodiles in them too.

Bush Stone-curlew

Black Shouldered Kite

Spider World (a bit creepy really!)

Tasmanian Devil

More photos have been uploaded to the Australia Reptile Park photo gallery on ZooChat.

Mostly I wanted to try and get a photo of a Crimson Chat to see if that would work well as a logo / mascot for my new ZooChat website. A “Zoo Chat” or the “ZooChat Chat” perhaps.

With a few suggestions from members of the ZooChat forums as to where to find them at the zoo, I did track them down and managed to get some decent photos (difficult with the small mesh fence around the aviaries).

Crimson Chat

The Red Pandas were also out and about today, so I managed to get some good photos of them too.

Red Panda

It is exactly 5 years to the day since I launched the original ZooBeat website and discussion forums, and the site has really taken off in the last year or so. Originally, most of the traffic was from Australian and New Zealand – but now we get most of our traffic from the UK, with the US now in second place and growing strongly. Australia is still the third largest source of traffic to the site, but other parts of Europe are catching up fast.

As part of the move I also relocated the site to a new server hosted in the US – this should make it much faster for most members to access, while not making things that much more slower for people in Australia.

I still have a lot of work to do – and I want to redesign the photo galleries as well, since this has become one of the most used parts of the site.

I have set up a Facebook page which people can become a “fan” of on Facebook, and also created a Twitter feed, which sends out updates whenever a new thread is started on ZooChat.

It has been nearly 5 years since I last visited – which is quite disappointing given that my parents live only a few minutes down the road. We both can get in for free with Leanne’s life membership of Adelaide Zoo, so there’s not much excuse for not visiting more (although that kind of requires us to actually visit South Australia more often too!)

I was quite delighted to see they had opened up new walking tracks so you can go and view the animals at your own pace. Previously, the only way to see most of the animals was via the bus tour – which was not ideal for photography, and you could only do it once per visit. I’ve marked on the photo below the old walking tracks we’ve taken in the past and the new tracks. The “Ridge Track” was closed for maintenance so I couldn’t do that part of the walk, instead I headed up the Malleefowl Track to get to the Creek and Boma tracks.

Map of Monarto Zoo - I've indicating old and new tracks

The Wallaby Gorge is also new since our last visit and is only a short walk from the visitor centre. I quite liked this enclosure given that you could walk through the middle of it and potentially get quite close to the shy Yellow-Footed Rock-Wallabys. Fenced off areas on each side of the track allow the wallabys to stay away from the visitors if they wish.

Monarto Zoo - Wallaby Canyon

As I headed around the Mallee Fowl track which funnily enough takes you past the Mallee Fowl enclosures, I noticed this brightly coloured parrot in undergrowth nearby and was delighted to see a Mallee Ringneck Parrot wandering around.

Monarto Zoo - Mallee Ringneck Parrot

I was quite impressed with the new Giraffe viewing platform – a raised covered area which allows you to get up to head-height with the adult Giraffes and offers a great view out over the valley. Monarto have a large herd of Giraffes – and there was a 2 day old baby keeping close to its mother as well.

Monarto Zoo - Giraffes

The Boma track took me up past the Rhino enclosure to the Cheetahs – another raised and covered viewing platform which also offered an expansive view across that part of the park and a great view of the Cheetahs there.

Monarto Zoo - Cheetahs having a feed

All up I was very impressed with the new additions to the zoo, and I am looking forward to seeing the viewing platform for the Lions, which is still being built – and the new Chimpanzee enclosure which is also under construction. Will have to make an effort to get back soon and see these exciting new developments.

Monarto Zoo Bus Tour

GPS track of the path I took walking around Monarto Zoo

I’ve uploaded more photos to the Monarto Zoo gallery on ZooChat

Tweets from today

trying to catch up on stuff I missed while away

23rd September, 2008 11:22 PM from web

home now

23rd September, 2008 10:24 PM from web

at Adelaide airport using the free Internode WiFi – spent the day at Monarto Zoo

23rd September, 2008 6:52 PM from web