Last time I checked, I hadn’t seen giant pandas, giraffes, kangaroos, rhinos, gorillas, tigers, elephants and monkeys in the wild in Athens, Georgia. Which is why I enjoyed my visit to Zoo Atlanta last year. There are so many neat animals to photograph.
I vividly remember the abundance of baby mammals at the zoo. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Everywhere I turned, there were babies!
I was excited to see the giant baby pandas, but I was also excited to see a baby lion, giraffe, rhino, orangutan, and gorilla.
I watched this mother gorilla and baby for quite some time. The baby explored the world around him. At one point the baby walked very close to a steep cliff near the wires. The mother quickly moved him away from danger.
The baby spent most of his time having intimate time with his mother. Several photographs show the baby grabbing each side of his mother’s face as he looked in her eyes. The baby enjoyed a lot of hugs too!
He seemed to want his mother’s full attention as she gazed off in the distance, so he grabbed her skin tightly. The mother responded by gently biting him on the shoulder, and the baby quickly let go of her face.
I took a series of shots during the encounter then I took this photograph. Everything was back to normal and they were snuggling again.
I could tell the mother gorilla had a deep love for her baby. She protected him, loved him, but when she needed to, she corrected his behavior.
Love…what a perfect topic to write about since Valentine’s Day is tomorrow!
God has a deep love for us! His love is unfathomable to our human minds. The greatest example of His love is He sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins.
If we could love others how the Lord loves us–what an amazing world we would live in.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. (1 John 3:1, NLT)
