grendelkhan ([info]grendelkhan) wrote,
@ 2005-08-15 23:00:00
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Entry tags:photography

returning to the lincoln park zoo.

bear sculpture and waterfall
Carin and I made the trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo today. When I went last year, I cursed my father's camera for its ineffective nature. I had the opportunity to go back and re-take many of those shots with much better kit. (That picture of the Sun Bear? I got the exact same pose.) And there was plenty to see; the weather was perfect; note the sun dappling the bear sculpture at left.

The turtles inside were mating again, very slowly. As they did last year, the female (or just the one on the bottom; for all I know, they could have just been playing horsey-back rides) dragged around the one on top, who left long foot-tracks in the sand. No children stopped by to ask embarrassing questions; Carin and I just watched and giggled quietly.

snow leopard
We got a bit tired after walking around in the heat and humidity---though the sun really was perfect for pictures; check out the leopard!---but there was an air-conditioned cafeteria for people to sit in.

The place was pretty busy, which pleased me. It's nice to see people out appreciating the natural world. It's the sort of thing I can't easily do where I live, since the closest zoos are at least two hours' drive away, in cities where the parking and toll situations are... complicated. Here, I got literally hundreds of pictures of all sorts of things, which'll take me days to sort through, no doubt.

spiral ginger flower
There were botanical gardens in a building right next door to the zoo, so we went there as well. The flower at left is Costus barbatus, the Spiral Ginger. Lovely, isn't it?

We stopped at a Borders on the way back to the apartment, where we discovered a new issue of the Serenity comic being written as a bridge between the series and the movie. Carin was overjoyed.

Back at the apartment, we had rented a copy of The Postman, which was not a particularly good movie, though it was based on quite a good book. I had suggested renting it because David Brin himself seemed to have liked it. I think he let his optimism get the best of him; yes, the important philosophical points were made, but are we really at the Samuel Johnson point in forward-looking optimism? ("It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.") As always, The Man says it better than I can.

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[info]mesoterica
2006-05-12 09:53 pm UTC (link)
I swear the LPZ must have the horniest turtles (tortoises?) in the world - I've never once seen them doing anything but sexing it up when I've gone.

Lovely pictures, particularly that Spiral Ginger :)

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[info]grendelkhan
2006-05-15 05:38 am UTC (link)
monkeys hugging tails
'Cause flattery will get you everywhere, you're getting two Bolivian gray titi monkeys hugging tails. Aren't they frickin' adorable? (It's clickable, and even cute full-sized.)

As for the humpin' turtles... for serious? If I hadn't seen the male dismount while I was there, I'd start to think that he spends all his time riding the Female Turtle Express round and round the enclosure. I reckon there are worse ways to spend a zoo turtle's life. Actually, given what I'd heard about zoo animals, I'd have expected the monkeys to masturbate at me, or attempt to mark me as their territory, but they were really well-behaved. And cute! So cute!

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