The Dublin Zoo

I felt like I’d done so much already, yet this was only my second day in Ireland. I guess that’s what I get for landing at 9 in the morning, haha! (Note to self: next time, don’t get an overnight flight. The relaxation you will have of not looking out and seeing miles and miles of ocean that you will drown in if the plane falls out of the sky will NOT offset the physical uncomfortable-ness and mental strain of wanting to sleep but not being able to sleep either because you hate flying and are stressed out or you can’t get comfy even with a pillow thing (yes, I’ve seen ads for those turtle neck things and that looks way too claustrophobic for me – I do not want to just buy one online, not tried out, I will absolutely need to put one on before I decide I can stand it, first).

ANYWAY. The Zoo!

Dublin Zoo is very conservation-focus, which of course I love. There are signs on every animal saying how many of them there still are in the wild, what level of threat they’re at and why that threat is there (IE predation vs decimation of ecosystems), and what they’ve done to help that animal as far as breeding and/or breeding with other zoos and/or giving offspring to other zoos for more breeding.

The Zoo opened, like the cemetery, in the 1830s. It’s about 70 acres, total, and kind of like Disney’s Animal Kingdom it’s divided up by range of animals, so animals that are native to a certain part of the world all live close to each other. The one thing that’s different from other zoos I’ve been to is that the typical “petting area” for kids to pet animals is set up like a family farm. So kids can not only pet the sheep, they can see where and how the sheep eat, where and how the sheep sleep at night, and for all I know there may have been an area for shearing sheep… but when I got over to that part there were a gazillion screaming children because it was a holiday week and the weather was lovely so I noped out of actually touring the family farm. Call me chicken. Bra-KAWK!

It was about the time I got to the Red Pandas that something happened to my camera. I don’t know what, really (if I knew, I’d fix it!). I put it in my bag at one point, and when I went to get it again, it was on. And it wouldn’t focus. And it’s been fighting me on focusing ever since then. Did I bring my manual? Of course not! Why? Because I looked for my camera bag for six weeks before leaving, and couldn’t find it. I wound up buying new batteries (I found my charger, but the batteries and the manual must have been in the bag) but I didn’t think to buy a new manual. After all, it worked fine in Alaska, right??? Sigh. So now every time I take a picture with the camera, I have to take three or four pictures in the hopes ONE of them will focus correctly. And it will barely take close-ups if I’m standing close to something. If I’m a block away, awesome, the zoom will work. But if I’m standing close to something trying to take a macro photo, it won’t focus on the close thing at all. Gah.

The wolves were definitely having some sort of social drama. There were… I don’t know, four or five of them? This one was always off on his own, while the others were gathered around one of the other ones. The small group, they’d walk around, some of them would fawn on the one wolf, they seemed to be looking to the one wolf for instructions on where to go and what to do. And they’d all growl at this one if he tried to get close. So he’d sit far away and sort of growl at the others if they looked at him.

Did I want to bring him home with me? Of course I did!

I could hear these guys for a good half hour before I got to them. I don’t know if they were screaming about lunch, or what, but MY GOD. I got a little video, it’s in my photo album. They were VERY VOCAL about SOMETHING. I did love to watch their throats swell up as they got air to make their hoots.

I got all excited for a second thinking this was a Cassowary, but it is an Abyssinian Ground Hornbill. And he was very, very proud of the tiny pinecone thing he’d found! He kept turning his head this way and that, with it clutched in his beak. I stood there watching him watching us for about ten minutes, and he never let it go.

Lastly, let this be known as The Day I Discovered Paprika Pringles. I picked them up in line at the zoo cafe, thinking they were cheese (what with the orange can). But no! Even better!

The cafe did have Real Food, btw, but most of it was chicken based (even all of the salads had chicken) so I thought I would be safer picking through the more snack-like options.

All in all I had a good day at the zoo. I had planned to be there from whenever I got there in the morning until maybe about 1 PM, and then I was going to take a cab to Iveagh Gardens. But it got to be 2 PM and I still had half the zoo to go! Definitely larger, more spread out, and more to see than I thought there would be. I think there were a couple of sections I didn’t even get to (there were giraffes somewhere, I found out later, and I never even saw them) so I would definitely go back again.

… I’m going to have to come back to Ireland again, aren’t I……

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot! If you want to see the rest of my zoo photos (and watch the video with the hooting) you can find all that here.

Thank you for reading my little travelogues, y’all. This is such an experience and telling you all about it makes me feel less solo.

xoxo