Come with me to the zoo.
Using the power of the Internet! Behold! Digital photographs, delivered directly to you with this magical technology.
We truly do live in the future of my childhood.
Except for the flying cars. Still a rip-off on that point.
Either way, as promised a little while back, I've put together a post of a few photos from our last trip to the zoo.
Over the last while our zoo has been undergoing a major face-lift, so probably a good 1/2 to 1/3 of the park is actually a giant mud-hole filled with heavy machinery. I do find them sort've an interesting juxtaposition, the machines behind bars on one side and critters on the other side. But we're not here to talk of heavy machinery. I will not even go into my Dream of the Flying Bulldozers; how graceful and majestic they were.
But wait, back to the animals! And what's a trip to the zoo with-out seeing the Canada geese? Most of the young ones are in their ugly teenage years, but it seems that at least the adults have a little more time to chill instead of playing "banana herder". 'Cause they come in bunches, y'know. Like bananas.
Yeah.
Part of the zoo renovation involved the closure of the east gate... the gate that actually leads directly from the zoo into Assiniboine Park. I'm not certain if I completely understand why they've done this... if it is temporary or permanent, but it does serve the purpose of not having people walk directly through the entrance into a big construction zone.
By entering through the west gate we now start out right by the Shirley Richardson Butterfly House.
Or last visit there provided us only with a view of some painted ladies (not that type) and monarch butterflies.
This time there were a lot more other varieties of butterfly. This orange tiger butterfly was quite phenomenal, and unlike many of the other butterflies, it actually stopped moving long enough to be photographed!
As did this little fellow.
This butterfly on the other hand, was quite determined to keep moving all the time. I managed to snap a photo of it (almost by accident) as it lit high up on the wall.
It wasn't until a little later on that viridis_ama pointed out that this very same butterfly did stop moving, but with its wings closed, one might not realise it:
Now, if only I had enough brain-power to figure out what these amazing creatures are called. I'm certain it will come to me in time.
Since we were still a little early for the ocelot feeding, we decided to wander over to the Kinsmen Centre and check out what animoos were there. They had moved the barn (though we didn't bother going in to see the assorted goats and bunnies), but we did wander through inside to see the new enclosure for the North American song birds.
Here we see an excellent example of sexual dimorphism between the male
and female violet-backed starling.
In another section we got to see snakes cuddle. It was very cute. You could almost feel emotion there.
Feeding time was near, so we made our way back to Toucan Ridge. Though I was able to get a photo of a duck playing peek-a-boo in the foliage
our ocelot is still rather hard for me to capture.
Perhaps it's just the cat-nature of things, but when it comes to feeding Bragon, our ocelot is a non-stop slinky-machine.
I did get some more close-up photos, but usually they're poorly cropped, or only partial spotty, so I'll save everyone the clicking.
After a few dozen photos we moved on to see our friend the snow leopard. It was very active... but then again, there was a zoo employee there with a bucket of meet and feeding tongs, so that might've had something to do with it. I think he was simply looking for hugs.
Though the leopard doesn't even need to acknowledge that fact that he's beautiful, our peacocks aren't quite as confident. This fellow spotted his reflection in the glass.
Unfortunately, I think his admiration quickly moved to jealousy as he leaped to attack!
After watching this repeat a few times, I decided to move on... he didn't need an audience. As I turned to go, a zoo employee mentioned that the peacock had been doing this since about 7am. Well, there's something to be said about determination!
On our way out of the zoo we decided to take in the Birds of Prey show where we got to see the pointy claws of a Harris' hawk
... and the ever-piercing stare of a bald eagle.
The bald eagle is such an impressive animal, it's almost heartbreaking to think of how much distress we've caused to their species... or well, any number of species out there.
During this visit to the zoo, viridis_ama and I talked about the changes we'd seen in the zoo as of late (most of them positive), and how the staff seemed to be a lot more on-hand and willing to talk to folks. I'm assuming this was a conscious effort, and something that I very much enjoyed. When we stood at the snow leopard enclosure the staffer (who had worked at the zoo 30 years) gave us a lot of interesting information about the zoo, how they were working with the animals, and some hints about phase 2 of the renovation, where effort will be concentrated on building up the "Asia" portion of the zoo.
It's all pretty exciting stuff for me!
We truly do live in the future of my childhood.
Except for the flying cars. Still a rip-off on that point.
Either way, as promised a little while back, I've put together a post of a few photos from our last trip to the zoo.
Over the last while our zoo has been undergoing a major face-lift, so probably a good 1/2 to 1/3 of the park is actually a giant mud-hole filled with heavy machinery. I do find them sort've an interesting juxtaposition, the machines behind bars on one side and critters on the other side. But we're not here to talk of heavy machinery. I will not even go into my Dream of the Flying Bulldozers; how graceful and majestic they were.
But wait, back to the animals! And what's a trip to the zoo with-out seeing the Canada geese? Most of the young ones are in their ugly teenage years, but it seems that at least the adults have a little more time to chill instead of playing "banana herder". 'Cause they come in bunches, y'know. Like bananas.
Yeah.
Part of the zoo renovation involved the closure of the east gate... the gate that actually leads directly from the zoo into Assiniboine Park. I'm not certain if I completely understand why they've done this... if it is temporary or permanent, but it does serve the purpose of not having people walk directly through the entrance into a big construction zone.
By entering through the west gate we now start out right by the Shirley Richardson Butterfly House.
Or last visit there provided us only with a view of some painted ladies (not that type) and monarch butterflies.
This time there were a lot more other varieties of butterfly. This orange tiger butterfly was quite phenomenal, and unlike many of the other butterflies, it actually stopped moving long enough to be photographed!
As did this little fellow.
This butterfly on the other hand, was quite determined to keep moving all the time. I managed to snap a photo of it (almost by accident) as it lit high up on the wall.
It wasn't until a little later on that viridis_ama pointed out that this very same butterfly did stop moving, but with its wings closed, one might not realise it:
Now, if only I had enough brain-power to figure out what these amazing creatures are called. I'm certain it will come to me in time.
Since we were still a little early for the ocelot feeding, we decided to wander over to the Kinsmen Centre and check out what animoos were there. They had moved the barn (though we didn't bother going in to see the assorted goats and bunnies), but we did wander through inside to see the new enclosure for the North American song birds.
Here we see an excellent example of sexual dimorphism between the male
and female violet-backed starling.
In another section we got to see snakes cuddle. It was very cute. You could almost feel emotion there.
Feeding time was near, so we made our way back to Toucan Ridge. Though I was able to get a photo of a duck playing peek-a-boo in the foliage
our ocelot is still rather hard for me to capture.
Perhaps it's just the cat-nature of things, but when it comes to feeding Bragon, our ocelot is a non-stop slinky-machine.
I did get some more close-up photos, but usually they're poorly cropped, or only partial spotty, so I'll save everyone the clicking.
After a few dozen photos we moved on to see our friend the snow leopard. It was very active... but then again, there was a zoo employee there with a bucket of meet and feeding tongs, so that might've had something to do with it. I think he was simply looking for hugs.
Though the leopard doesn't even need to acknowledge that fact that he's beautiful, our peacocks aren't quite as confident. This fellow spotted his reflection in the glass.
Unfortunately, I think his admiration quickly moved to jealousy as he leaped to attack!
After watching this repeat a few times, I decided to move on... he didn't need an audience. As I turned to go, a zoo employee mentioned that the peacock had been doing this since about 7am. Well, there's something to be said about determination!
On our way out of the zoo we decided to take in the Birds of Prey show where we got to see the pointy claws of a Harris' hawk
... and the ever-piercing stare of a bald eagle.
The bald eagle is such an impressive animal, it's almost heartbreaking to think of how much distress we've caused to their species... or well, any number of species out there.
During this visit to the zoo, viridis_ama and I talked about the changes we'd seen in the zoo as of late (most of them positive), and how the staff seemed to be a lot more on-hand and willing to talk to folks. I'm assuming this was a conscious effort, and something that I very much enjoyed. When we stood at the snow leopard enclosure the staffer (who had worked at the zoo 30 years) gave us a lot of interesting information about the zoo, how they were working with the animals, and some hints about phase 2 of the renovation, where effort will be concentrated on building up the "Asia" portion of the zoo.
It's all pretty exciting stuff for me!