A duckling swims on the lagoon areas around my apartment complex in Alameda, California.

Although there are only twenty photos in his gallery, Subhankar Banerjee’s Artic Refuge Series collection are all beautiful shots. The shot on the right is, I think, my favourite, but it was a tough choice.

Subhankar’s website also contains a lot of information about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and what you can do to help protect it from the threat posed by oil-company-owned politicians.

Alongside the reticulated giraffe, gazelle and elands you will find the African Crowned Cranes. Easily the most striking in the enclosure (at least in terms of colour), they are also the only crane to perch in trees, preferring solitary trees that give them a good view.

Walking up from the children’s zoo area, you will pass the warthogs. If you’re lucky, they will be resting near the viewing area; sometimes though they seem to prefer watching over the Australian animals in the next enclosure. While they are not the most attractive animal in the zoo, are you going to tell them that given those tusks?

Warthogs are the second Oakland Zoo animal that younger visitors will use a different name for, again the result of Disney’s Lion King: Pumba is a warthog.

A slightly different formatting of this jelly fish shot was made digital photo of the day over at The Digital Photography Weblog yesterday; an honour I am grateful for (thanks guys).

The submission of this image (and the thistle from Angel Island) to the Flickr group that photos are selected from for the digital photo of the day came about as part of my investigating Flickr a little more, as well as from discovering the blog via Engadget (they are both part of the Weblogs Inc collection of blogs).

Just past the lions at Oakland Zoo, take the lower trail to visit the meerkats. The lookout watching everything from a high perch will be the first one you see. As you get closer, you will be able to see lots more at ground level rushing about their busy lives. These proud parents were just sitting on a mound of dirt posing for photos with their offspring though.

Despite the name, meerkats are not cats. Meerkat is the Afrikaans term for mongoose, which is the family to which they belong. They are insect eaters, native to Africa, and are not endangered.

Younger visitors to the zoo will be quick to remind you that a meerkat starred in Disney’s Lion King as Timon too.

Second favourite of Oakland Zoo‘s residents are the two sun bears. The smallest of all the bears, they are another native of south-east Asia. They are also an endangered species and one of the (unfortunate) animals that are used in Asian traditional medicine.

In true Winnie-the-Pooh style, sun bears eat honey; in fact, they are sometimes called honey bears. Unlike Pooh though, they eat the bees too!

Perhaps my favourite of all the animals at Oakland Zoo are the white-handed gibbons. A native of south-east Asia, these primates have the distinction of being the only higher primates to form pair bonds (excluding humans).

This one was perched at the very top of the highest tree on their little island. Since they will not go in water at all, a small moat is all that is needed to keep them from escaping. This makes them a lot easier to photograph, if only they’d keep still long enough 🙂

This is also the first shot I’ve posted here taken with my new Canon 75-300mm lens (complete with the image stabilisation feature). My initial reaction is that I love it, and while IS works well, for the 300mm shots the tripod I took with me to the zoo was still very useful.