At the Zoo

We didn't get a chance to get out into the countryside of Australia, so we had to settle for seeing the local wildlife at the (excellent) Sydney zoo. (However, we did see certain interesting specimens of the species homo sapiens in the wild, which I'll discuss in an upcoming post.)

We saw all but one of the famous animals of Australia, including koalas ...


... echidnas (spiny anteaters, which are mammals but lay eggs) ...


... and kangaroos :


We also saw a wombat, but since it's a nocturnal animal we weren't allowed to take a picture inside its house (it isn't very photogenic anyway; it's a shapeless grey animal about the size of a raccoon).

Only the duck-billed platypus refused to show its face; it, too, is nocturnal but lives outdoors and apparently hides in the shadows during the day.

But the best animal sighting actually happened at the refreshment stand. Australia does not, apparently, have any pigeons, so their role in the ecosystem is taken (at least at the zoo, but this was not in a caged area) by colorful lorikeets:



We didn't see lorikeets anywhere else in Sydney, but we did see other interesting birds, including a sort of heron that was very common in Hyde Park. And then there was the most common flying creature of Sydney, which came out every night around dusk:


More on them later as well.