Zoo trip

On the weekend, we went to the Inokashira Park zoo. It's a nice zoo, though it's much smaller than some zoos I've been to. It had a fair number of animals (most of which I forgot to photograph) as well as an area for kids to pet guinea pigs and some small rides (also for children).

Goats being goatly.

On our first pass, perhaps the most fun animals were the goats because goats are pretty entertaining when they're just being themselves and daytime is a time that they seem to actually like. They were housed with some chickens, which was an interesting combination. When we went by the first time, one goat was standing on something and trying to eat it at the same time while another was also trying to eat the wood.

We came back toward the end of the day and got to witness feeding time as well. The chickens tried going for the food at first, but then the goats stampeded in and they all got out of the way very quickly and snuck back to steal food when the goats were almost done.

Near the goats were some porcupines that were stubbornly refusing to get out of their sleeping area on our first pass (probably because they're nocturnal). The second time we went by, one of them was awake and pacing about, occasionally bristling up his quills. They make a very interesting sound when they move, it was very similar to the sound that leaves make when the wind blows through them. This seems to be a pretty good adaptation for an animal that lives in the forest. After a while of this, a little door opened up and the porcupine went into the building. The other porcupine, however, refused to get up. We saw it move its head and it seemed to be awake, but it promptly put its head down and pretended to be asleep when the porcupine keeper opened the door to its enclosure and tapped a broom on the cement and made various knocking sounds to try and entice it to wake up and come in. After some time, this porcupine also went into the building, presumably having made its point or whatever it was trying to do.

The capybara poses.

The zoo also had capybaras, which I was pretty excited about. I've known about capybaras since I was 10, but I'm not sure I've seen one in person. One was sitting still near the front of its enclosure watching the people who were watching it. The other one was hiding in a little shelter they had at the back.

We barely missed getting to see the elephant. It was an Asian elephant, which would have been nice to see as well since I think I've only seen African elephants in person. Probably in the summer it would be easier to see the elephant since it could go outside, but it was likely too cold for that.

This place also had some monkeys which had a fairly large place full of various toys, including a water slide (though it was probably too cold for them to want to use it). They were variously running around or climbing and jumping on things (where "things" includes "each other") and generally being pretty funny.

Omg, kitty!

There was also a squirrel area where you could walk amongst the squirrels. This was not quite so interesting to me, since I've had to evict squirrels from my balcony before. These squirrels were much smaller and kinda cute though. They're probably also the only squirrels I've seen in Japan, so I can see what the attraction might be for people around here.

The zoo only had one kind of cat and it was a pretty small one (like a large house cat). They seemed to have a lot of them, but they weren't all out on display.

There were a lot of other animals, but many of them were sleeping when I felt like taking pictures so I didn't take pictures of them (balls of fur don't photograph so well) or they were moving too fast (like the monkeys). I also hardly took any pictures of birds (thought there were many of those).