How Many Mountain Goats?
I took this picture at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and only later found it fascinating! As the tram went past it (and do not get me started on how awful that tram ride was. I will never, ever do it again if there are obnoxious children and parents waiting to get on it, which means I will probably never, ever do it again.) the guide said, “This is our habitat for mountain goats. They’re hard to see, but they are up there!”
I saw six immediately, and pointed them out to the people next to me who couldn’t see any of them. I snapped a photo to remind myself of the neat camouflage job. Later, when I looked at the photo on zoom, I realized there were a few more than four.
If you want to give it a try, right click on the photo and save it to your computer, then look at it in your photo manager and enlarge it to about 200%. Enlarging it too much pixelates the image and makes it more difficult to see. Then, use a magnifying glass if you need to, to really see the detail. Go over each zone of the photo and you’ll see them. It’s sort of like an Easter Egg Hunt!
I wonder what would happen if a few of those mountain goats, surveying their bland and rather bleak surroundings, would decide to jazz things up a bit. How would they redecorate? How would they change their own appearances? What would they do to stand out in the crowd? I suppose the answer is that they would do none of those things, because they know hungry mountain lions would spot them easier. Individualism can be a good thing but attracting unwanted attention is not! Many of us would have benefited from attending Mountain Goat Survival School early in our lives.
Let me know how many you find!
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OK gang, time to get the answer. I only am counting those that I can see for sure, either on my own or with a magnifying glass. (Although, even without a magnifying glass I can see most of them fairly well when enlarged slightly.) I have three question marks, and 41 sightings! Yes, 41! I had entered it here as 39, when I found two more, right out in the open!
Pastor Jeff Adams found several that I had not found, but I don’t think that should count, because he is supposed to sort of be like a shepherd, finding the sheep. Right? And, doesn’t the Bible say something about separating the sheep from the goats, or vice versa? Anyway, when it comes to seek and ye shall find, he found them!
Evans, Colorado Police Department Chief of Police Rick Brandt did a good job too. But again, how impressive is that, when he has had a whole career involved with finding people who don’t want to be found?
A friend who wants to remain anonymous was very close to the correct answer. But since she did most of her looking while at work, she felt it would be better to not have her name announced. I tried to convince her that my readership on this site could hardly be considered equivalent to putting it in the Rocky Mountain News, but she demurred.
How many did you find? Thanks for playing!
