One of my early childhood memories is going to the zoo in Chicago with my mother. My favorite exhibit was the penguins! The Topeka Zoo currently has an exhibit of African Penguins on loan from the Omaha Zoo so yesterday we went to check it out. Apparently they spend most of their time just sitting on the rocks, going into the water every 45 minutes or so. We checked back several times and must have just missed it once as they were preening the water off themselves. It was hard to get a good picture through the glass, and here is the best one even though the middle bird had to move his head.

I think these small inactive African Penguins would not really have made much of an impression on a small child. Those in my memory were Emperors and I loved to see them swim and do their funny side to side walk looking like fat men in tuxedos.

It was a beautiful day in the mid 70’s but still, most of the animals were just sleeping and not offering much in the way of photo ops. The Black Bears were at least awake.