I captured some portraits of Mexican gray wolves during my most recent visit to the Brookfield Zoo. As soon as I approached the exhibit, a couple of the wolves noticed me and came up close to my camera. During my past visits, the wolves usually keep some distance. The outdoor exhibit is quite large and features some large rocks and several trees.

I suspect that the wolves approached me that afternoon out of curiosity. I was probably the first visitor to their exhibit in a long while. In all my visits to the Brookfield Zoo, I have never seen it so empty. And it was a "free day" at the zoo. I arrived at the zoo just after lunch and my car was one of the only ones in the large north parking lot:

I wanted to capture some closeup portraits of the wolves, so I attached a 1.4x teleconverter to my 500mm lens. This gave me an effective 700mm of focal length on my Nikon D850. Here are a few of the photographs:

Mexican gray wolfMexican gray wolf at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on February 1, 2018 Mexican gray wolfMexican gray wolf at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on February 1, 2018 Mexican gray wolfMexican gray wolf at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on February 1, 2018 Mexican gray wolfMexican gray wolf at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on February 1, 2018 To give some perspective of how close I was to the wolves, that last picture is hardly cropped--it's 6,500 pixels across!

Visiting the zoo in the Winter has its challenges. It was 18 degrees and windy...and my fingers were stinging from the cold. But, not having to deal with field trips and large crowds makes it well worth any discomfort.