Who Me?

There is a little trail near the stream before you get to the Elephant enclosures that is marked Employee Only; and all of the (I think?) Australian Pelicans were huddled up on the shore honking at each other. Due to the sign I stayed away, but later, after passing most of the elephants, there was another trail right before the bridge to the orangutans that I saw the Pelicans at. Tip-toeing through the trail, I spotted this big guy — but he kept shuffling away from me whenever I pointed the camera his way. I decided to settle down and just observe, and eventually he turned my way, one feather over his bill, almost like he was embarrassed. Great pose and a great experience just observing. I was surprised no one else came upon us, and when I finished the trail and looked back, I saw that same employee only sign!

Looks like I double-backed without realizing it.

Great photo oddernod, what'd you think of Melbourne Zoo?

Its a weird little path that one, the public definitely use it from time to time, but that confuses the flow of the "Trail of the Elephants" route, which is presumably the main reason its marked as employee only. As well as the Australian pelicans, there are also great cormorants (also in your photo above), nankeen night herons, swamphens, moorhens, ducks and turtles. Pelicans are also displayed in the Wild Seas exhibit.

Love the Melbourne Zoo — oddly enough it's layout reminded of the Hub and Spoke layout of Disneyland. It was great fun to explore and I was thoroughly impressed with several of the enclosures, particularly the Elephant and Orangutan ones. I've never seen that much land dedicated to either of those species before. There were some odd spots: the new Lion and African Dog areas were rather sparse, particularly for how heavy the sun could get in those areas, but I'll chalk that up to how new they must be.

I walked around the whole day trying to find the red pandas until I finally asked someone after eating a mid-afternoon snack, only to have them giggle and tell me to look straight up. That was amazing!

Yes, I do like the layout of Melbourne, although its somewhat incomplete so far. The Orang exhibit is stunning, certainly one of the best in the world, but the Elephant exhibit is not that big - the LA one is at least three times bigger...

You're correct about LA's elephant section — it's massive. I guess I was overwhelmed by the activity and separate areas at Melbourne. I had to wait at a trail crossing as two elephants were allowed to cross to another area and I was only a few feet away from them. I've never been that close to something so massive in my life. Really impressive.