A manul pilgrimage to Boris in Krasnoyarsk! Part 3.

I continue my account of visiting Boris in Krasnoyarsk.
Boris greeted the second public feeding, scheduled for 16:00, with great enthusiasm—well, how could it be otherwise? The keepers had the coveted bucket, the presenter was sharing amusing facts about the tsar-father over the microphone, and manul devotees had their fingers on their camera shutters. 
It is difficult to photograph Boris when he is running around the enclosure in search of hidden morsels. But people soon dispersed, and Borya and I were left practically alone. He kept searching and sniffing around. He came closer to me and looked at me so intently, so intently, that I did not want to leave.

Just in case, Borya went over to the door through which the food came, but in vain—now he has to wait until tomorrow.

He licked his lips and washed up, and now, all clean, he looks into the camera. 

Time relentlessly ticks away the seconds. Royev Ruchey is far from the city center. Transport does not run often here. I had spotted a shop that was open until 18:00, and there was a bus at just the right time. But I still had to visit the Ferris wheel. Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by low mountains, and one of Russia's main rivers—the Yenisei—flows here. 
But no, I cannot leave Borya—I want to admire him again and again. 

At the end, I figured out how to photograph the important process of lip-licking: you need to use burst mode to take lots of shots at once. That way, I managed to capture the stages of the little tongue coming out.

First, the mouth is tightly closed. Then a small gap appears, then the little tongue, then the tongue comes all the way out, and it ends with the mouth closed again.

There is no limit to my happiness.

Another selection featuring the little tongue.

I say goodbye to Borya. I rush with Namika to the Ferris wheel. The tsar-father did not forgive me for leaving him after 5.5 hours of audience and not staying until closing time—the bus left (perhaps it never came at all), I took another one, but when changing to a different bus, I went in the wrong direction, and as a result, I was late for the shop. But at least I enlightened a woman on the bus about Boris.

In the second photo, the one with the green roof, Boris lives nearby, and from his enclosure you can see a little of the Yenisei and the mountains.

That was such a wonderful one-day journey to Boris.

The beginning of the story is here: Part 2, Part 1.