Cats!

During my photo shoot ramblings, I have had the pleasure of visiting with a few cats who just happened to be close to whatever I was photographing. Some of them were shy and would run away, but others were curious and followed me around.

My favorite cat is this one who resides at the Old Court House Museum in Vicksburg. He's a friendly little fellow and seemed to enjoy posing for my camera.

I came across this little cat napping in a flea market booth, and thought he was real until I got a little closer to him. I was amazed by how real he looked!

A couple of years ago, I did a post about The Gates of Vicksburg, and was shooting a picture of this gate at one of the cottages of Cedar Grove Mansion ...

There is an enclosed patio area below the gate and I interrupted these little guys sunning themselves.

During a "country roads" photo shoot, I discovered this little "peeping tom" watching me from the side of the road. He ran away when I tried to get closer.

On a photo shoot I did at the Jackson, Missisippi Zoo, I found some more cats, but they didn't follow me around, thank goodness.

As I was writing this post, it occurred to me that I haven't encountered many dogs during my travels. In fact, I can only think of one that was sitting in some tall grass beside an intersection of two country roads, and I quickly snapped his picture.

This has inspired me to add to my collection of cat pictures. They have such beautiful faces, and I would love to get some good closeup shots.

Wild Things! -- Part I

My husband and I took advantage of an exceptionally warm and pretty February afternoon yesterday and went somewhere we haven't been in a very long time -- the Jackson (MS) Zoo!

I've recently discovered that I enjoy photographing animals, and have written a couple of posts featuring photos I've taken of cows' faces. But it didn't take me long to realize that you can take only so many photos of cows and they all start looking alike. That's when it occurred to me that the zoo is literally a photographer's treasure trove of animals just waiting to be captured with a camera.

I hope you will click on the photos to enlarge them to see the faces of these fascinating creatures ... some are hauntingly beautiful, a few are comical, and a couple look rather menacing.

We began our adventure by visiting with the Giraffes, and it appeared that they were mother and offspring (I didn't notice if it was a boy or girl).

The mother was quite friendly and
seemed to enjoy having her picture taken ...

She's so precious and looks so innocent ...

My favorite animals at a zoo are the cats ... and these 300-pound guys are Sumatran Tigers. They are three brothers from the same litter and are three years old. There were two fences separating us, which was very frustrating to the photographer (me) at times ...

Water aerobics, anyone?
Check out the claws!

While we were visiting, the tigers' keeper came by to feed them and they became quite animated ...

He looks like he's thinking,
"Just a little bit closer!"

I asked the keeper if he ever went inside the fences and he said, "They would eat me in a second!" I couldn't imagine that because they looked so sweet and cuddly, but that made me thankful for the two fences between us and them.

Our next stop was to see the Cougar ...

What a face ...

While researching the animals for this post, I discovered that "cougars are excellent jumpers. Using their long tails for balance, they can achieve leaps up to 20 feet from a standstill." I'm glad I didn't know that when I was taking his picture.

He was yawning in this one, but looks like he's growling. Check out those teeth! ...

We disturbed the Amur Leopard's afternoon nap when we walked up, but he graciously posed for a few pictures ...

For brevity's sake, I'm going to end this post here. I hope you enjoyed seeing these beautiful animals and will return tomorrow for Part II of our zoo adventure. The best is yet to come ...

Sincerely,