National Geographic Kids USA – September 2019

SARTORE

PLACED THE

BLACK BACK-

DROP BEHIND

THE GIRAFFE’S

LUNCH TO GET

THESE SHOTS.

Moment of

WOW

RED-MASKED PARAKEET,

native to Ecuador and Peru

Kamla Nehru Zoological

Garden, Ahmedabad, India

Parakeets are loud, active,

supersmart birds. When I

brought this red-masked par-

akeet into the photo tent, he

first climbed up on the equip-

ment and nibbled at my lens.

But then something caught

the bird’s eye: his own reflec-

tion in the camera lens. The

bird didn’t try to fight the

reflection, so I thought maybe

he understood he was looking

at himself, or perhaps at

another bird he knew wasn’t

a threat. Instead, he posed

for the camera! I felt like the

smart bird could tell I was

there to take his picture

and help him.

“

“

WANT MORE MOMENT OF YUM? Check out some supercute

animals chowing down. natgeokids.com/september

SEPTEMBER 2019 • NAT GEO KIDS (^25)
ALAOTRA REED LEMUR
Native to Madagascar
Plzeˇn Zoo, Plzeˇn, Czech
Republic
Moment of
YUM
RETICULATED GIRAFFE,
native to Africa
Gladys Porter Zoo,
Brownsville, Texas
You definitely can’t make a
giraffe do anything it
doesn’t want to do. So to
get this animal to be part
of our photo shoot, we
combined the activity with
one of the giraffe’s favor-
ite things: lunch. We hung
the huge black backdrop
from the rafters in the
part of the giraffe’s enclo-
sure where it gets fed. The
giraffe ambled in, not
minding me at all. For
about 10 minutes, while
the animal munched on
bamboo leaves, I could
take all the pictures I
wanted. But as soon as
lunch was over, the giraffe
walked out, and our photo
shoot was done.
Giraffes
sometimes use
their tongues
to clean their
ears.
“
“