Fur In The Paint

I have people waiting on paintings of giraffes and rhinos and thus they were the target of my afternoon outing to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo last Friday. Unfortunately they (the rhinos and giraffes) weren’t feeling all that cooperative but I’ll tell you who was . . So okay, you probably guessed by the title. And if not that, perhaps the photos were a clue.

Now I have been trying to get some decent cheetah photos for ever. But every time I’ve been to the zoo they’ve all been snoozing in the background. Tiny little heads peering above the grass in the distance.

This time, after some patience the napping cat got up and started jogging about (for like 30 minutes) as it was almost feeding time. (lucky me) It’s easy to envision a great cheetah painting by swapping out the lush orchard grass for say some gold and mauve dry grasses. (Yummy)

The cheetah didn’t really care that I was there.
However the leopard . . . well he did.
This is an Amur (Persian) Leopard and he loved me. I don’t know if I reminded him of someone or if he was wondering if my doughy center was made of nougat. (Oh wait, that would be me, he was probably dreaming about my doughy center being made of exactly what it is.)

At any rate he followed me about while constantly watching me and rubbing himself hard against the fencing. It took all my self control (I mean that literally) not to reach out and scratch him. I could have, the small railing and hedge would still allow for that, if I stretched a little.

I seriously pondered it. I mean when would I ever get to lay hands upon an Amur Leopard again. There are like 40 left in the wild. The only reason I did not was because I would have had a heart attack had I seen someone do that to one of the big cats at the zoo I worked at. (Our enclosures wouldn’t have allowed for that though. Electric fences. On the cat side. Not the people side.)

I would go away and he would push his face into a crevice and watch me go. Then later I’d come by and he’d be lounging up high on the rocks and timber ignoring the folks standing in front. He’d see me and jump down and run up to the fence *chuffing.

Again hard to say why he liked me so much. That happens to me quite often with critters (both zoological and domestic) and occasionally with creepy men.

So today I plan to go to the Niabi Zoo just outside the quadcities area in Coalville, IL. We are doing Riverrssance this weekend in Davenport, IA. Niabi is a very small zoo. But they have some stunning Asian Elephants and who knows what I might find.

See you all next week.

*Chuff: is to exhale loudly in a rush of air. In terms of big cats it’s what they do in greeting or to calm one another. A mother tiger will chuff to her cubs to soothe them.

P.S. I felt the need to clarify this as the urban dictionary has chuffing listed from everything like feeling proud of oneself to rape.

P.P.S. I took well over a dozen rolls of film. Unfortunately the developers machine gave out after doing only 3. So what I chose for the blog are hopefully no where near the best shots.

P.P.S.S. I see while visiting Louise’s blog that tomorrow the 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I’ll have to remember to throw in a Yarrrgh or Matey with every sale.

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