Tierpark

So, we went to the Tierpark yesterday and the weather cooperated beautifully! I really enjoyed it! Stewart, on the other hand, was probably not as excited as I was to walk through a gigantic zoo all day long. He did say he enjoyed it, but you'll have to ask him if that's true or not. At any rate, I have decided to take you on a visual tour of our day at the Tierpark. Enjoy!


(t) - The Tierpark entrance. (b) - This European Red Deer was definitely the alpha male. He chased all the other deer out of the building and made as much noise as possible. Here he was raising his head and making whatever noise they make. It wasn't until too late that I thought of filming.


This stork was hissing at us. It was very strange. Since the animals decided that it was a great day to be vocal, I tried to get some of them on film.

(t) - This little mouse, so young that its eyes weren't even open yet, had no idea that he was lunch. Fortunately, the snake did not seem very hungry at the time...or is it unfortunate to prolong his fate? (b) - This Yemen chameleon was possibly the coolest thing we saw at the Tierpark. His colors were so vibrant. Look at his funky feet!

(l) - I think this was some sort of pheasant, but I can't remember anymore. His colors were very beautiful and he even turned his head to pose for the picture. (r) - This is a wolverine! I've never seen a wolverine before. He just sat there with his large claws looking out at everyone. There was another hiding near the back. This zoo likes to keep pairs of animals. I think they are encouraging reproduction. It seems to work, because they had a ton of baby animals.

(l) - Sloths are some of my favorite animals. They are just so cute! The sloth at the Hogle Zoo in Utah is always sleeping (which stands to reason because they are nocturnal), so I've never seen him moving. However, this sloth was climbing from one side of the cage to the other (on the ceiling of course). It was feeding time, so I guess that took presidence over sleeping. (r) - This sloth did not feel the same as the other. He took the food from the zookeeper and went back to sleep. I did think it was pretty cool that his claws were hanging out of the cage though. Oh...and as you can see, these are two-toed sloths.

They had three baby elephants that were just adorable! I'm not sure I've ever seen a baby elephant in real life. So, we filmed them playing. Please ignore my stupid comment at the end. I thought Stewart said "tusks" not "trunks".

There was an adorable baby hyena at the Tierpark. The video is not that exceptional, but I accidentally filmed instead of taking a picture.

(t) - They had an area filled with different kinds of vultures, buzzards, some other birds, and even one kind of eagle. This guy was spreading his wings out...I don't know why. Maybe he just wanted his picture taken. (b) - Although there were several lions outside, there was also one male lion inside. At one point he was roaring like crazy! Unfortunately, I arrived too late to film it. I was hoping he would start up again while we were there, but he decided it was nap time.

Bats are another of my favorite animals, so I was very excited to find out that you could actually go into the area with the bats. The Hogle Zoo used to have flying foxes, but we learned this summer that they are no longer there. The flying foxes at the Tierpark were flying from one tree to another, so I tried to film them flying. Unfortunately, this was my first time filming with our camera, so it is really bad footage. However, I thought I would include it because the whole idea of bats flying over you in the daylight is pretty cool. Fortunately, the bats did not pee on us like they did on some of the other people.

(t) - The polar bears (or ice bears as they are called in German) were probably thinking it was way too hot for them. This guy looked up once, but quickly resumed his sprawling. (b) - I just threw this one in because anybody who knows me knows I love frogs! In the kinderzoo (children's zoo), they had a garbage can shaped like a frog. :)

(t) - I love this picture! Near the llamas there were these fluffy weed/reed things. The sun hit them perfectly (if you weren't looking at the sun). (b) - There were a ton of pelicans at the Tierpark. Some of them had black feathers on their backs, and some were pinkish. These guys had funky hairdos.

So, that was our adventure at the Tierpark. Many of the animals were very close. My brother Philip would have loved this place! (Especially the cheetah, Phil. He came right up to the edge of the fence, and you could see everywhere in the enclosure.) If any of you come to Berlin, you should definitely think about visiting the Tierpark.