The Golden Orb Revisited

The sun shined today. And it was warm. And it was good. If there's one thing I've learned living in Buckeye Country, it's to take advantage of the sunshine when it comes, so I went to the zoo to enjoy it with some animal friends. I thought the North America exhibit was great in the fall, but I discovered today that it's just as great in early spring. I could feel the excitement among the animals; it was the same excitement I was feeling. Spring is coming. I saw a Mexican wolf asleep in the one spot of his enclosure that lets in light through the trees. I watched two cute and cuddly grizzlies (if you can overlook their huge claws and those teeth) as they played together. A timber wolf came right up to the edge to look at me, although I think he was a bit more interested in the two-year-old girl a couple feet to my left. The cougars were lazing around like big fat cats, but the bobcats were up and on the prowl. The pronghorns were awake and basking, and behind them the bison stood eating. The songbirds in their aviary were all a flutter of singing and tree hopping and ground rustling.

And I made friends with some little ones who have never come out to say hi on any other day that I've been to the zoo. I've heard and observed them in the wilds of Northern Arizona, but today they observed me. The prairie dogs were out today, at least six of them. They were chatting amongst themselves when I arrived. Today I was the crazy lady at the zoo who would suddenly start talking to the animals, but with the prairie dogs it actually worked. "Hey little guys, nice to see you out today!" Whereupon one of the biggest of the bunch leaped up on his hind legs, let out a yelp, and came running up to within a foot of the glass. Then he sat there on all fours looking straight up at me and wiggling his nose. "Um, hi." He sat still for a moment and then gave another leaping yelp, landing on all fours to stare at me some more. "Oh, really? That's nice to hear." He sat there staring for a while longer, breaking his gaze only to glance up at the Canadian goose that was vainly threatening to invade his kingdom. He let out another leap and a yelp, and continued looking at me until a smaller member of his community came running down to talk to him. A father arrived with a handful of children. He kept trying to point out the prairie dogs to them, but they seemed more interested in the goose. (Why? I don't know. You can see geese anywhere there's a patch of grass in Columbus. But they would persist.) The moment broken, I moved on.

Yes, the Canadian goose invasion seemed worse today than it usually is. They were actually honking from atop both the Asian exhibit and the elephant enclosure buildings. This angered one of the beautiful Asian cranes, who proceeded to honk back, but it wasn't a mere honk that this crane gives. It sounded like a baby elephant. A few explosions from the giant crane, and the geese were silent. Within the Asian exhibit, I made eye contact with the one giant "flying fox" bat who was awake. He looked too restless to sleep, and his eyes followed me as I walked from one side of the exhibit to the other. (Bats are a secret fascination of mine, so this was a welcome occurrence.)

I also made a visit to the penguins today. I could hear them from around the corner. That's right, I could hear them. Have you ever heard a Humboldt Penguin (of Peru) before? It doesn't give those cute little squeaking sounds like the penguins in The Chipmunk Adventure. They're closely related to the Jackass Penguin of Africa, and you can hear it. I was strolling along, thinking, "Maybe I'll visit the penguins next," when I heard a loud and deep hee-haw. "There's no donkeys in this part of the zoo. What is that?" When I heard it again, I was almost upon the penguins, and it was louder. I suddenly remembered what Linus had taught me about Jackass Penguins, and I thought, "Wow! That's the penguins making that wonderful noise!" There were only a couple out, and the sounds were coming from their little caves, so I walked over to the window where you can look inside to their little "burrows". Apparently they are nesting right now. One of them, when he saw me, waddled over to the glass to look at me. So there I was eye-level and within inches of a Humboldt penguin. He didn't hee-haw at me, but he did seem very interested in my presence there. And then he returned to his mate and their nest.

I made a quick visit to see the kiwi birds and the koalas in the Australia exhibit. One koala was actually awake and eating eucalyptus leaves. In the aquarium area, I actually saw a ray eating a leaf of lettuce with his flat mouth. A lot of the animals aren't out yet because it isn't officially spring, but today was a great day to go to the zoo, and it had been a long time for me.

Sweet scent of elephant dung baking in the warm glow of the golden orb, how I have missed thee.