We visited Newquay Zoo on the Monday of our holiday.
Most of the pictures on this page were taken with the Pentax KM, which was loaded with 400ASA colour negative film. The choice of camera body was partly because this was the body I was running 400ASA film in; and partly because a camera without a motor drive is less likely to startle the animals! The lens of choice most of the time was my Tamron 85-210 zoom.
One of the first group of animals we saw was a family of prairie dogs. There were young ones playing, but they moved too fast for me to photograph them, so I had to be content with photographing the adults. Interestingly, they sometimes stand up like meercats.
On a technical note: the two pictures on the left were taken with the Pentax KM using 400ASA colour negative film; while the two pictures on the right were taken with the Ricoh KR-10 Super using Kodak Elite Chrome Extra Colour 100ASA slide film. It is interesting how much more detail the negative film delivers in the shadow areas, but to deliver similar tones in the animal's coat, I had to turn up the saturation on the negative after scanning.
Our next stop was the part of the zoo where the farmyard animals live.
I particularly liked this fine cockerel, who had the run of the whole area and flew in and out of the pen where his hens were.
The Vietnamese pot bellied pig appeared somewhat grumpy. Maybe he was having a sulk!
The household end of the animal kingdom was represented by a family of mice - appropriately housed among the contents of a kitchen cupboard!
There were a variety of primates at the zoo, but this is the only one I photographed.
The next stop was the tropical house, where I photographed both birds and reptiles.
This was the bird that proved the most photogenic.
This had to be my favourite reptile. I spent quite a lot of time in front of the glass case which housed it, with the camera on the tripod. Unfortunately the best picture had an unwanted light reflection partially obscuring one of the lizard's feet, so I decided to present the picture on the left minus the affected foot.
Here are some more reptiles which caught my eye.
Back outside in the regular Cornish climate, I found some more birds.
Our meanderings took us past the raccoon enclosure next.
Then we saw some more birds.
The meercats, the white peacock and the porcupines were all in the same enclosure, along with some animals I haven't pictured here. The peacock appeared to be displaying for the benefit of one of the animals he was sharing with, as there were no other peacocks nearby!
When we went past the red panda enclosure for the first time, the animals weren't active, but we came back later when they were out and about.
Not only did we see black swans: we also saw white swans with black necks!
On our way towards the exit, we saw Morris the Mynah bird:-)
