Over the years, I've gone back and forth different years with being a member of Lowry Park Zoo.  I don't recall who, but someone came across our path and mentioned that they had Koala bears at the zoo.  I've been there many times to do photography and never seen them - so I went this week and had to look at the zoo map and sure enough, they have them.  Guess what? It's in the children 'petting zoo' area and I typically don't go into that area.  So this time I walked in and looked for the cute little Koala Bears.  They have two different ones in their habitats.  The first one was sleeping and you couldn't see their head, so not much of a photography opportunity there.  The second one was eating breakfast - much better chance here!

These photographs were taken through glass using a 70-200mm lens.  I used the flash on the camera to put a small catchlight in the eyes of the koala bear.  The secret to getting a good photograph when photographing through glass is to put yourself at an angle to the glass.  This way, the flash will go through the glass to your subject, but bounce back at an angle and not at your camera.

This little bear seemed quite content to eat the leaves of this plant which I am not certain what it is but it looks like Eucalyptus leaves which is one of the main tree leaves on the diet of a Koala bear.  They consume 200 to 500 grams of leaves a day - that sounds like a lot, but I don't know how many grams are in a given leaf.

And my photoshoot ended shortly after that because the koala bear decided to ignore me!

That's it for this week!