About once a month I walk past the zoo on my way to the Asian grocery store, where I fill up my backpack with food. On my way today I had the pleasure of seeing this Andean condor sunning himself on a snowy stump. He stood like this for some time, turning himself around in the sun. When he stopped his sunning and folded his wings onto his back he did so with all the grace of a frustrated traveler attempting to fold up a large road map. Perhaps aired-out wings are like aired-out bedding, more difficult to fold. Notice how the feathers have been clipped on the interior of his wings.

Thanks to the cold, the cages and pens for the other exotic creatures were empty today, leaving the locals to roam around in them, plundering and partying. These sparrows were helping themselves to the food trays in the shore bird pen, and I saw a few crows absconding with some large pieces of food into the zebra cages. The crows were having a heyday all over the area, until the wolves began howling. This caused them to suddenly take to the trees and then fly off, in a mass of at least a hundred. Were I not in the middle of the city on a sunny day, the sound of howling wolves and hundreds of circling, cawing, crows would have certainly filled me with terror. Instead it just seemed like everybody was making a big bother about nothing.

On the way back home I saw this lovely little sign of spring: