Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Mark Myers, Curator of Birds It’s baby bird season at Woodland Park Zoo! Over the past few weeks, we’ve had several successful hatchings from birds across the zoo—from temperate waterfowl to tropical tanagers. Here’s a round-up of some of the significant hatchings: Cinnamon teal and falcated ducklings. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. The quiet, tucked away Temperate Wetlands exhibit is home to a number of newly hatched ducks and geese. Since July, we have successfully hatched falcated ducks, red-breasted geese, redhead, cinnamon teal, and lesser scaups (North American diving ducks). Candling a red-breasted goose egg. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. To help prepare for all of these hatchings, our zookeepers use a process called candling in which they hold an egg up to a high powered, focused light source for a few seconds to see if an egg is fertile or to check the health of a developing embryo.  We were thrilled to candle and

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A penguin’s tuxedo feathering is not for fancy occasions—it’s actually a type of camouflage known as countershading.   Humboldt penguin at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Ryan Hawk/WPZ. When a penguin is in the water, its black back blends into the darker water below when viewing it from above, and its white belly blends into the lighter surface of the water when looking up from underneath it. 

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications With Olympics in full swing, we’re awarding some medals to our own animal all-stars, some of the best athletes at Woodland Park Zoo. Competition: Swimming Penguin porpoising with purpose. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Gold medal: Humboldt penguin Humboldt penguins may seem awkward on land, but in the water they truly fly, getting up to speeds of 17 mph and bursting into glorious dives known as porpoising, where they leap out of the water to catch a breath and dive back in again without losing speed. Doing the backstroke. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Silver medal: River otter Otters have a killer backstroke, though their form might differ from our own. Plus, their propensity to create whirlwinds that kick up bottom-feeding fish may throw off the competition. Hippo submerging. Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo. Bronze medal: Hippo Hippos get up to about 5 mph underwater, but

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Even if you haven’t seen the crested screamer at the zoo, you almost certainly have heard it.  When these birds vocalize, it is obvious why they are named “screamer”—their double-noted trumpeting or guttural drumming can be heard up to 2 miles away! You’ll find our screamers in an exhibit near the flamingos in the Temperate Forest zone .  Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo

Posted by: Susan Burchardt, Zookeeper A raptor flies over a wind turbine. Photo by Gretchen Albrecht/Woodland Park Zoo. As part of our wildlife conservation efforts in the Pacific Northwest , Woodland Park Zoo collaborates with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Raptor Ecology of the Shrub-Steppe conservation program. This spring, zookeepers Gretchen Albrecht, Ros Bass-Fournier, Jean Ragland and I returned to eastern Oregon for three weeks to continue research begun last year . We recorded data on how nesting hawks interact with wind turbines. Hours of observation gives us important insight into how raptors are adapting to this new change to the shrub-steppe habitat. Lupine in a field of turbines. Photo by Gretchen Albrecht/Woodland Park Zoo. Shrub-steppe is a grassland habitat that occurs in western North America. Grasses and shrubs make up the shrub-steppe landscape. The most common shrub, or woody plant, is sage brush. There are many birds,

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Kookaburra at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. I have quite a few favorite animals. When you work at the zoo, it’s hard to pick just one, but I never walk past the kookaburras without smiling. These birds are totally one of my favorites. Why? Here are the top ten reasons kookaburras are one of the coolest aves at the zoo: 1. Kookaburra itself is a very fine word, try saying it without smiling… impossible. The name "kookaburra", COOK-ah-burr-ah, came from the aboriginal tribal group, the Wiradjuri people, of New South Wales in Australia. They named this bird for the laughing sound it makes, onomatopoeic of its call. 2. Kookaburras sit in trees and laugh all day long. Although they vocalize more at dusk and dawn, kookaburras have one of the most unique vocalizations of any animal. Their laugh is so distinctive that it has been widely used in soundtracks on television, in movies, and more rece

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Remember our little penguin hero , the boy who spotted an abandoned Humboldt penguin egg in our exhibit and alerted a keeper to its need for rescue? Despite our all-points bulletin to locate him and thank him for his effort, we never found him after two months of searching. But we won’t let his act go unrecognized even if his identity remains a mystery! So we decided to honor our little hero by naming the penguin chick Ramón, a Spanish name that means “protector.” Ramón is now two months old and is thriving behind the scenes. His rocky start as an abandoned egg put his survival at peril, but thanks to the little boy’s call for help, penguin keeper Celine Pardo was able to rescue the egg before a crow or gull could snatch it. The egg was given to a pair of foster parents who took it in and successfully hatched it days after the rescue. The chick is old enough to start some training so he now works with his zookeepers behind the sce

Posted by: Mark Myers, Curator of Birds It's that great time of the year when many of the birds at Woodland Park Zoo begin to nest and raise chicks. By far the most unique species we breed is the tawny frogmouth. They look like owls, but they're actually relatives of nightjars (nighthawks, whip-poor-wills, etc.). This primarily nocturnal species is native to Australia, and the zoo has two pairs in an off-exhibit area for breeding purposes. Tawny frogmouth chick at four days old. The ball of fluff in this photo is the fourth chick produced by a pair we received from the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia in 2009. It hatched on May 17, and the parents are raising it on a diet of insects and small mice. When hatched, it weighed 0.6 ounces (17.5 grams). The small, white dot towards the upper tip of the bill is the egg tooth. This is what the chick uses to break the shell as it is hatching. The egg tooth will eventually fall off as the chick ages. The frogmouth

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications While many visitors think this animal is a goose that has taken up residence in the flamingo exhibit, this is in fact the Coscoroba swan , native to South America and known to fly with flamingos during migration in the wild. Photo by flickr user Sean Enright

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications A fuzzy Humboldt penguin chick stretches out during a check-up with keepers. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. What is more adorable than a penguin chick check-up? It’s tough to think of anything more wonderful to celebrate springtime than a couple of fuzzy, gray additions to our Humboldt penguin colony, especially the story behind one of these very lucky chicks! Up close with a penguin chick. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Two little penguin chicks received their first weigh-in and visual health assessment yesterday behind the scenes at our award-winning Humboldt penguin exhibit. Keepers John and Celine carefully weighed and checked each penguin chick, the first two of this year’s penguin breeding season. These desert penguin chicks weighed in yesterday at 9 oz. and 11 oz. Penguin chick on the scale! Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Here you can see a penguin egg being candled. Keepers