Tigers Messing With Tourists OR Just Monkeying Around

We're back at the zoo again this week, and while I know we all love aquatic animals and gardens, it's time to look at the rest of the animals.

So come with me down the path that contains many animals of the air and the ground.

After all, the path is so nicely wooded!

Let's start with the various birds and flying things around the zoo. Why? Because they're so fabulous.

Especially this one. Faaaabulooouuussss!

One of the neat attractions they had (just past the fabulous flamingos) were the aviaries, where you could enter the cages and hang out with the birds.

To be fair, they did more hanging than I did.

These bird houses had a wide variety of aviary attractions, from the stylishly colored...

Colonel Orangechest knows you can't keep your eyes off him.
Go ahead. Drink it in.

...To the ones with... um... good camouflage skills...

The first, second, and third place winners of the Rock Lookalike Contest.

...To the birds that clearly dressed themselves this morning before coffee.

It suddenly occurs to Phillipe that he may be color blind.
...Also that this branch might not be food.

Farther away from the aviary there was a bald eagle habitat, where the eagle hung out looking stately and posing for pictures.

Which includes glaring at me through the fence to make sure I get his good side.

"Wait, wait, wait," I can hear Cynical Reader saying, "Aren't bald eagles protected as our national animal or something?

They certainly are, C.R.

This Informative Plaque brought to by the
Coalition for Reminding You Who's Really In Charge Here. (CRYWRICH)

And now, we shall leave the land of our feathered friends...

Whhaaaaaaaaa......?

Okay, we'll show a picture of a toucan, THEN we'll transition away from feathers to the mammals. Specifically, the flying kind.

Well, at the moment they more hang out and eat than anything else.
Kinda like teenagers.

These particular bats were mid-sized bats, as we found out by the nearby informative plague.

Not pictured: The Batman.

Nearby there was a bear hanging out in his pretty cool habitat. Honestly, I like bears, always have, an affinity only strengthened by a couple close encounters in Montana at one point. In general, they're dignified creatures that have great strength, but generally will grant respect if you give it to them.

Also, don't laugh at them being adorable. Even if they do something really, really adorable.

Like the cuddle up to their widdle weather toy.

We then wandered through the heat over to the tiger area, but I was glad to know we weren't the only ones feeling the effect of the weather.

I kept thinking the red panda was going fall...
...but evidently "sacked out on a branch" is a natural position for them.

Now, one of the tigers was calmly chilling and posing for photos...

All the while pointedly pretending we weren't there.

...The other tiger? Well, it was having fun messing with visitors near one of the glass barriers, as shown by this progression of photos.

My first thought was, "Oh, look! It's coming right over!"

About now some monkey part of my brain realized,
"There's a tiger about five feet from me."

About this point, it was telling me, "Holy crap, you are going to die!"

When the tiger finally turned away right next to the glass, I swear I could hear it chuckling about foolish humans.

This interaction reminded me about my similarity to monkeys rather forcefully, so it made sense to go hang with them.

Literally.
(Okay, I'll stop making jokes about "hanging" now.)

That baboon would bounce up and down on the netting above the habitat, then at just the right moment reach through the netting and grab leaves from the tree several feet away. It was pretty frikkin impressive to watch.

The other monkeys were less about acrobatics and more about social commentary: Every time the black monkey would reach through the netting and grab leaves, the white monkey doing nothing would simply take a majority of the leaves.

It was like watching a theatrical play steeped in metaphor.

Next month they're doing a production of Waiting for Godot

Now, what animals should we look at next...?

"Ooh, could you apply your incredible wit to African mammals?"
"Nobody likes a kiss ass, Carl."

Sycophantic nature aside, Carl has a good point. The African habitats were large, with plenty of space, and plenty of animals.

A zebra chills in the shade.
In the distance, you can just make out a person on pavement in the hot sun.
Why are we the more intelligent species again?

Charles "Big C" Giraffe silently curses himself
for letting his style-cramping brother come along.

The adult elephant: Stately. Dignified. Proud.

The baby elephant: Daaaawwwwwwww....

Towards the end of the African section was an attraction to let kids and men run off they're excess energy. (Women are smart enough not to sprint in this heat.) As a bonus, they get to look silly for charity!

That's right: Every time a cheetah puts you in your place, their conservation fund gets a donation.
That right there is called a win-win.

When you "raced a cheetah," you actually tried to sprint and see how close you could get to a cheetah's top speed.

Answer: Not very.

Oh, and where were the actual cheetahs during this?

They're so fast...
...they're fast asleep!

And on that awful joke, I'll leave you. But remember: We may be entertained by seeing animals at zoos, but I'm pretty sure their number one source of entertainment is messing with us.

Number two is sleeping.

Landlocked Jacques Cousteau OR Another Turn Through the Garden

A few weeks ago was my wife's birthday, and being the incredibly mature person she is, she decided we should go to the zoo.

Which goes to show that she's awesome.

Me being, well, me, I immediately thought this would be great for a blog post. And I was right (as I often am). A little too right (it's my private curse). There were so many sundry beasts, that it had to be split in twain. So for this one, we'll start with all sorts of things that live in or near the water.

Even if the sea lions are going to be snotty about it.

Just past the sea lions who were too good for us was the entrance to the ocean building (sometimes called an aquarium). So we immediately ducked inside to catch a few rays.

Get it?

Now, I grew up going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and spent most of my life on the West coast, so I'm a little spoiled when it comes to aquariums...

...But I really liked the zoo aquarium, which had more than a suitable number of neat and weird sea creatures.

Jellyfish fall in both categories.

It even had some things I've never seen before. Like a shark petting tank.

Which was probably a whole lot more exciting
before they put in the vegetarian sharks.

The aquariums I've been to in the past often have a ray petting tank, but this is the first I'd seen with sharks. And along the back wall? The kind of large informational plaque that brings a tear of easily fascinated joy to my eye...

Not just "Imformative!"
This one is "INFORMATIVE!"

And, much like your old high school yearbook, it has a suitable amount of witty, yet dubious honors.

Somewhere a goblin shark is refusing to let his children see his yearbook.

The next logical step from sharks is, you guessed it... Penguins.

I'm all like, "What up, boids?"
They're all like, "Sup."

The penguin areas actually were on both sides of the walkway, with an underwater channel that allowed the penguins to swim between the sides. The best part? There's a thick glass window in the floor, so you can see the penguins swim back and forth.

I'd show you a picture, but A)people were kind of walking there, and B)It was dark, so the photos didn't come out.

So, um, I guess you'll have to trust me...

...Ooh, look! A walrus!

"Heellllllloooooooooo..."

Now that you're thoroughly distracted, we'll continue to outside the aquarium, where we were rather forcibly reminded that it was late August in the Midwest.

The polar bear eyed the fat kid's icy Coke
and regretted blowing that commercial audition.

So naturally, we retreated into the pointedly indoor dolphin show. And no, not the one with show tunes. (You will only get that joke if you went to Northwestern.)

The show in this tank.

I'm still not sure whether we're down on the farm or what...

I gotta be honest: This is one of my favorite shows with dolphins. I've seen the ones at SeaWorld and their ilk, and while incredibly entertaining, those are all about the entertainment. At the Indianapolis Zoo, the trainers showed us how they work with the dolphins, talked about how dolphins interact, and the tricks they use to communicate with them. Sure, the dolphins did tricks and jumps, but there was a huge educational part to it.

I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

Now, do you see that large thing in the water up there? That's actually a glass viewing area in the bottom of the tank where you can go in and see the dolphins hanging out underwater like gangs from West Side Story.

They're working on the choreography for
"When You're A Jet."

After that, we went off and saw all the rest of the animals. Which I will get to in another post. (So just hold your horses, bicycles, or whatever you ride.)

On this post, I'll finish it up with scenic images of gardens and greenhouses.

Well, greenhouse. But it's a big greenhouse.

The greenhouse had various butterflies and more tropical plants, and the outside was a wonderfully laid out garden, so let's stroll, shall we?

The entrance contained the rare Mural Plant.
It's natural habitat is downtown art districts.

Inside the greenhouse, where butterflies fluttered about...
...followed by photographers.

The best I could do for a closeup of a butterfly.
You have no idea how hard it is to capture them with their wings perfectly open.

Yup. That does, in fact, say they feed butterflies, "sugar, beer, and sports drink."
Just like frat boys!

I felt positively Victorian. Only without wearing 17 layers.

Each of the hedge curls had a statue like this of different animals.
Still not sure whether I'm charmed or creeped out.

The next section was a place to quietly contemplate deep thoughts...

...specifically: "Do you think that could hold my weight?"

And, of course, there were the fountain/sculpture hybrids signifying...
...Something. Possibly involving 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Are you calm yet? If not, read through the post again, because I'm sure it will only get better, since my writing is like a fine wine. (Too much of it may cause you to make bad decisions.)

Come back next week for lions, tigers, and bears!

And no, I won't finished that phrase.