The Cuteness Factor

Well I promised a post on “The Cuteness Factor” so here you go.
As I said in my last post (before getting distracted) Mon, my sister-in-law and her family came down from Queensland to visit us last weekend.

Well on Sunday we took them out to one of our favourite haunts, the upper Yarra Valley. The river was beautiful in the summer sun.On Monday we took the little girls (and their parents) to the zoo.
I always have mixed feelings about zoos: I find the plight of wild animals caged quite disheartening; but the children love to see the animals and, I must admit, so do I.
Also, I tell myself that modern zoos play a significant part in conservation of endangered species. This has certainly been the case with some small Australian species brought back from the brink with captive breeding programs, followed by wild release into national parks.

Melbourne Zoo has been undergoing renovation and upgrading for some time. One of the newer features has been the placing of various sculptures, that can only be described as kitsch, around the zoo.

One side benefit of these items is that small children seem to be quite as fascinated by these object d’art as by the real animals.

Meet the nieces: Mon’s “big girl” Kiele uses an elephant sculpture’s trunk as a window.See, I told you, cuteness factor in buckets.

This is Kennedy, Mon’s precocious not quite one year old.
As you can see, she is riding a “crocodile”.

Because the girls are so young we didn’t see the whole zoo.
But these were some of their favourites.

The giraffes.The butterfly house.
Here Kennedy stares intently through the rails at one of the butterflies.
Australian fur seals.In recent decades these seals have been absolutely protected under Australian law.
The seals in the zoo here were all rescued either injured or as orphaned youngsters. According to the keeper this female was found as a pup on a dairy farm in the southwest of the state. She was miles from the sea and starving. Raised in captivity she was released but she wouldn’t leave the area she was released in and kept approaching people begging to be “rescued” again. In the end when it was obvious she was not going to make it on her own she was returned to the zoo.

And last but not least Fairy Penguins. Also known as Little or Blue penguins these guys are very common around Australia’s southern coasts.
As I posted once before during daylight hours they fish out at sea, then at night they come ashore to burrows where they raise their chicks. I have seen these guys in the wild, but only resting in their burrows.
There is quite a tourist industry built around them at a place called Phillip Island people watch them come ashore after dark.

Then when the girls had enough it was time to head for home.

Kennedy peers back from her dad’s arms, by the time I took this photo she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.Tired but cute!