Life of Riley

One of my favorite animals is the Koala. When I was very young a relative passed through Australia on the way to the States and bought my sister and me each a koala bear stuffed toy. The toy was unique in that is was a very realistic representation of the koala, not a stylized, cutesy version of one. Between that and the Qantas Airlines commercials with the grumpy spokesbear saying, "I haaate Qantas...," I fell in love with the beast.

The real creature is difficult to shoot. Fortunately the L.A. Zoo has the enclosure set up in a way that you at least have a prayer of seeing one. This is mainly because they live in Eucalyptus trees and sleep about 18 hours a day. That doesn't leave a lot of room for photogenic closeups.

I got lucky, sort of, this visit. The shot above is one of the better ones, although I did managed to get a few that I liked. Most, like the above, had branches blocking part of the body, or the Koala had its head down as it was napping. I did get a couple with eyes wide open, like this one, but overall this pose seemed the epitome of Koala behavior. We should all be so lucky.

I have a couple more zoo pictures to show then I'll get back to some airplanes. It's been too long without - I'm going through withdrawal!