Wildlife Photo Hunt

This summer, the eight of us travelled to far-off places to look at animals not native to our little northwest town.

So we packed up our tent and our clothes, loaded the kids in the van and started our journey. Granted the 73.6 mile trip to the Oregon Zoo, doesn't quite qualify as 'far-off places', but its a long-enough drive for me with the six kids.

Plus we didn't drive straight to the zoo, we actually spent three days playing with my wife's sister's family. The Oregon Zoo was our first full day on our vacation.

For all but two of our kids, its was the first remembered trip to the zoo. We bought an annual membership to the zoo to keep the memory alive with the opportunity for multiple visits throughout the year...(that and it was only a few dollars more than regular admission for the whole family.) Even the 'Plus' membership with added bonuses and guest admissions cost less than two visits for our family.

We saw lots of cool animals and even rode the zoo train!

Considering the crowd, we were pleased that we left with the same amount of kids as we brought...and the same kids we brought!

We did have a little scare, though, when our youngest son followed someone else and got himself lost. By the time we figured out he wasn't with my group, my wife's group or my wife's sister's group, I ended up back-tracking past the monkeys, the alligator, the meerkats, and the giraffes until I found a nice lady asking a little teary-eyed boy if he was lost.

Scared us to death, but other than that, we had a good time at the zoo and even caught pictures of the wildest of animals:

Hummingbird In Action

I've always been fascinated with Hummingbirds. I'm amazed at their ability to hover, their speed and their size. I'm in awe at how fast they can flap their wings.

On our vacation we had the opportunity to visit the Oregon Zoo. While we were there we saw a hummingbird in action and took advantage of a potential photo opportunity. Using the sports setting on our camera, we were impressed with how well the pictures turned out. (These pictures have been cropped and brightened up a little bit.)

Here is the hummingbird 'stopping' after zooming in at lightning speed. In my vast unlimited lack of knowledge about hummingbirds, my guess is that this is an "Anna's Hummingbird" (Calypte anna)--perhaps an adolescent, if not an adult female.

Here's a close-up of the same picture. I love the deployed landing gear. Hummingbirds' normal flight speed is 25 mph.

It's amazing how they can hover so still. Looking at slow motion video, they tilt their wings in a figure-eight pattern as if they are treading water. Hence the unique angle of the wings in this picture. I'm guessing this hummingbird flaps its wings around 50 wing beats per second.

I like this picture because it shows the fluorescent feathers on its back. I also like how you can see the feather's of the wings...they really are birds! The feather's are actually kind of transparent.

Here you can see its beak getting nectar from the flower.

You can get interesting hummingbird information on the web in addition to the links sited on this page (http://www.hummingbirds.net/.)