Back from the Bronx

One of the two snow leopard sisters (Panthera uncia) I first saw two years ago, all grown up. Photographed at the Bronx zoo on July 5th, 2008.

I’m still learning how to use all the functions on my new camera but I have to say that I think I took some of the best photographs I have ever taken on my trip to the Bronx zoo today. Although the fossas were asleep in corners of their enclosure (depriving me of any good photo opportunities) most of the other creatures I visited at the zoo were active and awake. The photographs I took will appear one-by-one each day but you’ll definitely see some things here that I have never photographed before.

Also of note is that today, for the first time, I hear a snow leopard make a noise. Many sketches about the great cat are quick to point out that it does not roar, yet this does not mean that it is completely silent. Over the past several years I have never heard a snow leopard make any sort of vocalization, but today when one snow leopard was surprised by something in it’s enclosure (I could not exactly see what) it let out a low, hoarse bark not unlike sounds I have heard made by other leopards (Panthera pardus). Such a small event may not hold much significance but I appreciated it, even if only because I had never heard the species make that sound before.

[According to what my Moveable Type menu tells me this is my 1,000th post here at ScienceBlogs.]