Black and White Picture of Flamingos

Pandas. Who doesn’t love Pandas? I know what you’re thinking. The picture is of a flock of Flamingos, so why are you talking about Pandas? I’m glad you asked. Let me explain.

When we would travel down to San Diego every couple of years, we would take our daughters to the San Diego Zoo, mostly to see the Pandas. My oldest is especially nuts about them. Show the girl a Panda TikTok and she immediately gets those Puss in Boots endearing eyes.

On this particular trip, however, it was just me and my youngest. We were in the area scouting a possible job and place for her to live. We figured while we were there, let’s go and see the Pandas at the zoo. It was only a couple of miles from where we were staying.

Mid-November in San Diego is generally not very hot, but the day we chose to go turned out to be unseasonably boiling. If you’ve never been to the San Diego Zoo, it involves a lot of walking up steep hills. Doing it in sweltering weather was not something I looked forward to.

As soon as we entered, we headed down the hill to the Panda exhibit. The idea being that if it got too hot, we at least could say we saw the main attraction.

I’m not sure why I always got so trepidatious about going to the zoo. Once inside, I loved the sounds of the various birds, and other random animals. The smell, however, left something to be desired. People were generally in a good mood and the atmosphere rubbed off on me. By the time we were down the hill, I was pumped to see the black and white bears.

It had been four years since we’d been there and that seemed like a good interval to make one excited again to see such a beautiful and intriguing animal. I could tell my daughter was into it as well.

Straight to the Panda Exhibit

I remembered they usually had a Red Panda exhibit next door to the regular Pandas, and sure enough, a Red Panda peered down on us from a tree inside its glass cage. We entered the exhibit as a warmup for the main event.

Normally, I don’t find Red Pandas as cute as normal Pandas, but I had to admit, the red furry guy staring at us was pretty damn adorable. But as cuddly as he was, he wasn’t the real deal. So we headed over to the Panda exhibit.

We walked to where the exhibit has always been, however, there was something wrong. Things had changed. Did they move it? Why would they keep the Red Panda exhibit where it was if they moved the regular Pandas?

After walking up and back a few times making sure we didn’t miss anything, I pulled out my phone and did a Google search. This is one of those times when you realize that was something I should have searched before coming to the Zoo. Sure enough, it turns out that the Pandas were shipped back to China two years prior.

Doh! Did I feel stupid. We live in Northern California, and the Pandas are big news in the state. But because of the Pandemic, we must have forgotten about the announcement or something. Shit.

Time to Move On

Dejected, we hiked up to the polar bear exhibit, and then over to see the elephants, then pretty much walked back up and around until we were next to the entrance again. It had gotten hot and we were in need of a drink and a bite to eat. We grabbed some drinks and a couple of corn dogs and relaxed in the shade.

The choice before us was to head home or explore the part of the zoo we hadn’t seen yet. We voted to continue on.

The first animals we came across were a few Giraffes. Talk about amazing creatures to see in the flesh. It’s a wonder they don’t fall over. Continuing on our journey, the next exhibit had a man-made blue pool of water, and standing in the water, were a flock of Flamingos.

I had my black and white camera with me. I know. A strange choice of equipment to bring to a zoo full of colorful animals. But that’s how I roll. I mean, I am a black and white photographer, after all.

The birds stuck together and kept running from one side of the pen to another. It was on one of these transitions that I snapped the photo above. Their pink feathers were so vibrant, I knew that a black and white photo of them could never succeed.

Soon enough, the heat got to us and we threw in the towel and hiked back up the hill to our car. We headed back to our rental house and took power naps. Later that night, I downloaded the images onto my computer, and when the image above came up, I was blown away.

Flamingos are such wonderful and unique looking birds. The black and white removes the distracting pink color and really shows them for the glorious creatures they truly are. I couldn’t have been prouder to take such a unique image. It even made the disappointment of not seeing the Pandas bearable (see what I did there?).