The National Zoo!

 

When we arrived in Washington DC, our first outing was to the National Zoo.

 

It was cold and rainy and we had limited time, but it was still nice to see some of the animals.

 

We loved to travel all this distance and to see deer... Just like our backyard.

 

And ducks. Just like our rivers...

 

Luckily they had some more impressive ducks than the boring mallards. Talking about birds, when driving through New Jersey, we were amazed at the number of geese we saw there. Now I know where our geese go during the winter! All off to the Jersey Shore!

 

And once we were close to DC we almost got hit by a suicidal raptor, I think a falcon or a hawk, it was too fast to figure out details. It decided to cross the road, only barely missing our wind shield. Very cool to see it up close, but happy it missed us.

 

In the zoo we liked the indoors exhibits especially the ones with tropical birds.

 

Some of the birds were REALLY LOUD.

 

And some were hard to find.

 

I love the more colourful ducks, very pretty.

 

This was an outdoors bird exhibit.

 

Pretty birds

 

including a peacock guarding his harem.

 

 

 

 

Highlight of the day was the giant pandas. First we were disappointed it was too cold for them to be inside and we thought we were out of luck. But then we discovered the indoors exhibit, yay!

 

One was sleeping...

 

Adorable and cuddly! (Yes, i know they have claws and teeth and are wild animals but this still looked very cute!)