Pictures Toronto Zoo

[Heather F]

Discovered that a nice day in December is a great time to visit the zoo! Took out a year's membership this summer and so glad we did. It wasn't too crowded, it was a good few degrees above freezing so pleasant enough to be out and about without dressing warmly enough to die in the indoor pavilions, and many animals that would just be lounging in the shade in July were nice and active.

One of our two visiting Giant Pandas enthusiastically enjoying some bamboo:

Red Pandas, the cutest of all mammals. I'm pretty sure these are made by benevolent fairies giving magical life to teddy bears.

A couple of little charmers in the Australasia Pavilion that I hadn't seen before, so they may be new additions to the zoo, maybe from an aviary somewhere since they were out in the free flight area. The galah was content to stay up there and preen. The red tailed black cockatoo would wait for a bunch of folks to show up, then fly across to the other side of the pavilion and back. I'm pretty sure s/he was getting a kick out of showing off and startling the kids.

Baby penguins!

A 6 month old rare Burmese Star Tortoise, the first one successfully hatched in Canada's captive breeding program, likely to be eventually repatriated to Myanmar for reintroduction to the wild. In the meantime we can enjoy the tiny cutie.

Posing with an orangutan who likes a little people-watching with her naptime. I love her nest of blankies.

And last but not least, feeding time in the meerkat enclosure!

 

[camelotshadow]

 

[MyAussieFriends]

I haven't been to the Toronto Zoo in years! Im jealous

 

[Princessbella]

Those pictures are awesome! It looks like you had a great time

 

[Chantilly Lace]

Those red pandas, I cannot get over how darn cute they are!

 

[Heather F]

Those red pandas, I cannot get over how darn cute they are!

I know, right? :x3: :x3: :x3:

If you're ever having a bad day, google videos of red pandas playing in the snow. Instant mood lift.

 

[Birdiemarie]

Awesome! Looks like you had a fantastic time!

 

[cupoftea]

Nice! Goodness, red pandas are my favourite! Wish they had them here at the Vancouver zoo.

 

[Caryatid]

I'm pretty sure these are made by benevolent fairies giving magical life to teddy bears.

Haha that is awesome.

We just moved to Buffalo and I haven't been to Toronto yet. I'll have to add the zoo to my list of things to do this summer!

 

[Heather F]

Haha that is awesome.

We just moved to Buffalo and I haven't been to Toronto yet. I'll have to add the zoo to my list of things to do this summer!

It's definitely worth a visit! If it wasn't on the super far end of town from me I'd go more often.

 

[Kerplunq]

The Toronto Zoo is a fantastic Zoo! I live pretty close to that end. Anyone looking at wanting to go, check out Groupon before going. They seem to have super cheap tickets up there quite often.

And those Red Panda's are super cute I wanna hug them all lol

 

[Piccha]

What a great idea! I'm not far from the zoo

 

[Heather F]

We paid another visit to the zoo last week with a group of friends and brought the camera! It was a beautiful day, not too hot, and there were all sorts of signs of spring!

A very comfy snow leopard enjoying a nap in the shade. We don't usually get to see her this up close and personal!

Polar bear taking a nice cool dip.

As well as the animals on exhibit, there was plenty of native wildlife to see, too! Here are some cute little sandpipers.

When we were here in March, the two (okay one and a half since you can only see the tail hanging out of the jolly ball) young golden lion tamarins were just 10 days old and all we could see were itty bitty baby tails hanging off of their parents. Now they are half grown up and super playful!

I took so many pictures of this beautiful aracari but this one was the best of the bunch.

This guy was having fun with a foraging treat - some fruit frozen into a ball of ice.

World champions in the Synchronized Napping event.

Definitely springtime in the baboon enclosure! One of the other females was trying to seduce the dominant male, but he only had eyes for this one who was clearly in estrus. We stayed for a while enjoying the soap opera antics, but the parents with young children didn't tend to stay too long, because there were some major birds and bees going on!

Cheetah head peeking up over the hill.

And here's another not zoomed in to give you an idea of why it can sometimes be hard to get a good shot of some of the animals if they're on the other end of their enclosure, and why the zoo is so huge. They don't go in for dinky little habitats!

More pictures to come!

 

[Heather F]

Big rhino and tiny bird, enjoying a snack together.

We spent ages at the rhino exhibit. Usually when we visit they are in a far off corner of their enclosure just doing their own thing, but they were moving around and being very interesting this time. They're beautiful animals and, like elephants, surprisingly light on their feet.

Of course, the rhinos themselves weren't the only things entertaining us in their area. There were also some adorable native squatters! They were napping when we first arrived, but when the rhinos started moving around closer to them they eventually wandered away to the "lake" section of the enclosure.

Another cute little native squatter.

Hippo! Found out it was her 24th birthday that day. Unless the one with the birthday was the other hippo. One of them anyway, and I'll go with this one because this was the one who was being cute chewing on a snack.

Springtime flowers!

Sorry for the blurry picture and the other people with cameras in the shot, but this was the best I could manage of the dramatic showdown between bird and lemur. No actual violence, but a heck of a lot of posturing!

Here's a better shot of the lemurs on their own.

A few more to come!

 

[Heather F]

The bluebird of happiness?

Hey, if I had built such a magnificent nest, I'd be proud of it too!

I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures of the gorillas in their outdoor exhibit because the stupid auto focus kept fixating on the fence and I can't remember how to switch it to manual, but here's one of them trying to get at something on the other side using a stick.

As you can see, problems with the autofocus. But still, cute mama and baby Nneka. I think she's 10 or 11 months now?

Pretty tiger.

Some kind of cute exotic duck.

The is the same baby Burmese Star Tortoise as my picture from December. He's barely grown, but he was sure being active and adorable this time!

And one more bonus native wildlife springtime cuteness shot:

I love my zoo membership!

 

[JosienBB]

Awesome pictures!! I need to go soon!

 

[expressmailtome]

Your zoo has so many beautiful species!

Matt

 

[Begone]

Thanks for sharing this awesome pics!

 

[Loppy]

That was a fun day. I hadn't been to the zoo in ages, and I'm a 20 minute bus ride from it (if that)! We need to go again soon, @Heather F! Maybe the Macaws will be out this time!

 

[Heather F]

Took advantage of free commuter train service with our event ticket from the Pan American Games this morning, and spent a few hours at the zoo afterwards! I love having a membership so that we don't feel we need to see absolutely EVERYTHING on every trip because we can always come back, so we mostly stuck to the indoor pavilions to avoid too much walking outside in the sticky summer heat. (It went up to 31C today with a humidex around 40 - hot hot hot!) The other great thing with going regularly is that going to different exhibits at different times of day and in different kinds of weather means that there are different highlights every time because different animals will be more active and interesting.

Here are some highlights from today's trip:



Going towards the end of the day meant that the clouded leopard was more active than we've ever seen it. They have two, but we only saw one of them.


Gibbon with a stuffed dolly!


Nice kitty....


Tree kangaroo, not in her tree today!


Do you MIND??? We're a little busy!
Actually this was super cool. I had no idea mousebirds mated face to face like this! At least we assumed that must be what was going on. I love the way they kind of form a heart shape together, and the way their feet intertwine. They stayed like this the whole time we watched them (a few minutes), preening themselves and each other and just kind of... hanging around. It was enchanting.


Hello gorgeous...


Bonus shot: Wait, you're not part of the exhibit, you're just in the woods next to the footpath! Cute little guy actually - I thought skunks were more cat-sized, but this wasn't much bigger than a large squirrel.