Pumpkin Bash!

Well, this weekend was the annual Pumpkin Bash at the zoo.  They give the animals pumpkins and they make things fun.  By far, the most amusing are the small-clawed river otters.  There was much capering among them.  The folk put fish in the pumpkin, so there was much zaniness as the otters tried to get at the treats.

OK, so the otters were a lot of fun, but the hippos are great to watch.  They really like to chomp things and pumpkins are pretty ideal for that.  Here's one during the aftermath to all that chomping.

I saw the red panda today!  Usually, they're asleep and no fun at all.  Today, one was walking around for a brief time.  It would have been a really bad photo.  But believe me, he looked exactly like this picture.  They didn't give the red pandas pumpkins.  In fact, they don't give them to most of the animals.  We saw the maned wolves, who were clearly uncomfortable with eating things out of pumpkins.  And that was it for pumpkin bashing for this year.

On the way out, they were feeding the penguins.  There were a few thieving seagulls and some very ingenious (and also thieving) crows.  The penguins were also kind of entertaining.  I mean, most of them are pretty boring, but there are enough of them so that one or two of them are doing something amusing.