Now a post about an early morning bird walk you think would involve birds but what I really want to show off is bears, Grizzly bears to be exact. The Woodland Park Zoo hosted an Early Morning Bird walk a few weekends back. I had heard from a photographer friend that it is a lot of fun and you get good pictures of the animals at the zoo when no one is there and they are out and about. The 6:40am meeting time was a challenge, but the weather was great. There was about 60 people and we split up into different groups. Armed with my new Nikon binoculars that i had just purchased at REI and my camera I set off with the group to look for migrating birds that stop off at the zoo. We saw a few interesting birds—a couple species of hummingbirds, a Northern Flicker and a few small others. After our loop of the zoo I got to feed a big Hornbill bird and got to check out the new Cheetah that was right at the fence. But what I really wanted to see was the Grizzly Bears. I have stopped by their enclosure on a few different visits and they were always way in the back sleeping. This time I was not disappointed. Both bears, brothers 20 years old, were out and walking around their enclosure. I was in awe of how big they are and looking through the binoculars made it all the more terrifying. Check out the pictures below. The zoo does a great job of creating enclosures that feel like natural habitats and hide all the fences and moats.
