This morning, I received a link to an article in our hometown newspaper about Concord United, the soccer team I have played with for the past 22 years. Good thing I will be missing our preseason tune-up match today. Otherwise, I would have had to endure some serious ribbing. The full article can be found here.

On the Australian front, Jeanine and I spent 5 hours at the Taronga Zoo. We ran out of energy before animals to see. The award for the cutest resident was a four-way tie between the baby koala, baby platypus (not pictured due to its nocturnal habitat), the blue penguin (not pictured because it was behind glass), and the baby pygmy hippopotamus.

As you enter the zoo, you will see what I interpret as a statue of King Kong with an open hand for Ann Darrow. It took zero encouragement for Jeanine to assume the role. She did a few poses feigning fear but I liked this one of her giggling the most.

As you would expect, koala bears are prominently featured at an Australian zoo. I photographed nearly a dozen, but this alert youngster was my favorite.

The greater bilby is a long-eared, rabbit-like marsupial native to Australia. It lives in burrows and is active at night, feeding on insects, fruit, or fungi. It was a runner-up in the cutest animal category.

Compared to a kangaroo, rock wallabies are smaller, more agile marsupials adapted to rocky habitats with shorter legs and more vibrant coloration. Kangaroos are larger, faster, and inhabit open plains with longer legs and more uniform coats.

This image is exactly what it looks like. A mother red kangaroo and her joey hugging. I am not anthropomorphizing here. I did not believe it at first, but after watching closely through my telephoto lens, the embrace was unmistakable.

These spiders were not on display. I spotted them on one of the walking paths to the consternation of Jeanine who has been studying up on all the poisonous snakes and spiders native to the country.

If not for the log blocking my view, this might have been one of my all-time favorite animal photos.

When Jeanine and I were in South Africa, I photographed giraffes in the wild with the kinds of African savanna backgrounds you would expect. I like this photo because I was able to isolate the giraffe against the limestone back wall of his enclosure for a composition you would be unlikely to find elsewhere. Whenever I photograph animals at a zoo, I try to do so in a way that does not reveal their captivity.

Born in January, baby pygmy hippopotamus Lololi is every bit as cute as internet celebrity Moo Deng. I shot and saved dozens of photos of this cutie.

The royal spoonbill, also known as the black-billed spoonbill, occurs in intertidal flats and shallows of fresh and saltwater wetlands feeding on crustaceans, fish, and small insects by sweeping its bill from side to side.

I was about 2 feet from this massive silverback gorilla when I took this photo (through the plate glass front of his habitat).

The smallest of all penguins, the blue penguin stands about 12 inches tall. The photo below of one swimming underwater is heavily distorted by the wide-angle lens used to make the image.