calgary zoo- various exhibits

this is the last of my tour posts about the calgary zoo. not that i've done a good job covering the whole place mind you. in fact, i'm embarrassed to say, this is the worst review i've done (and i've covered a lot of museums, aquariums, and museums here before!)...

though i have a good excuse as you'll see at the end of the post. i had a very unexpected distraction during my visit, which caused me to not visit everywhere. the most noteworthy section i missed was the canadian wilds, which is an excellent gathering of canada's diverse (but mammal dominated) wildlife.

i did make it through a lot of the eurasia section...

one of the hold overs from my hatchlinghood was the flamingo pond. these guys always crack me up... even if these ones aren't made of plastic and on a lawn! if i ever get a house i need to get some. real or otherwise...

the calgary zoo has always made a big deal of its elephant enclosure, which had been upgraded and renovated since the last time i'd been. it is now elephant crossing. i have to say for the elephants the change in home was a real plus! they have way more space to do stuff in... or it might just be that we the public can now see it all...

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in any case i was pretty impressed.

it also has a healthy dose of cute, in the form of a baby elephant. the calgary zoo has a pretty successful elephant breeding track record, as i can think of at least 2 other babies in my lifetime!

sadly it was not all happiness in elephant crossing. a new tank had been put in for these rays, only there'd been a lot more of them in it when it first opened!

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out of 48 rays put in the public petting tank, shortly after being settled in all but two of them died! total bummer!!!

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making even more sad, due to the tragedy the public was no longer allowed anywhere near the tank. i had to take this shot on extreme digital zoom (hence the fuzziness... sorry, best i could do).

outside elephant crossing you hit a lot of outdoor enclosures. many of these are open year round, as the animals contained within are pretty hardy and adapted to the cold.

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i felt dumb going in, as i had a starring contest with this owl. why i felt dumb...

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1. owls don't blink anywhere near as often as i have to!

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2. i always think of owls as really smart, and looking at one for a while makes me feel like someone more intelligent then me is looking at me scoldingly for my tiny brain...

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moving on, there is also a small herd of the incredibly rare przewalski’s horse from mongolia. these guys are on the brink of extinction, mostly due to interbreeding with domestic horses :(
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turning around from the horses i was confronted with this swarm of sparrows.

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sure sparrows, the introduced pest they are here in canada (and most other places of the world!), are not typically associated as zoo animals. to be fair these ones weren't on display, or part of the official zoo tour. yet there were just SO many of them i had to include a photo of the mega flock... so there is a record of why i didn't make it out of the zoo alive!

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there was also the largest of goats, the markhor. which like, sadly, so many other creatures at the zoo are on the brink of extinction. you humans really need to smarten up. please?...

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next came the tiger enclosure. another classic zoo area.

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as i passed through this public viewing area, i caught a funny yet familiar scent. with my t-rex nose i can pick up all sorts of things. sadly as i haven't been out in the "wild" so to speak, i've learned to properly separate conflicting smells. the zoo with so MANY different types of animals in such a small area represents quite an overload for me, and i just don't know how to pick them all apart.

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yet there was a trace scent here in this spot that lingered with me.

rather then let this smell ruin my trip i went to watch the tigers. lucky for me they were in the middle of eating!

it was neat to watch one of the modern apex mammalian predators do its thing. way different from how i eat. these guys are all forelimb based manipulation. me i'm lucky if i can scratch my eye with my arms most of the time!

suddenly there was a shift in the air, and the scent that had bothered me earlier was much stronger... whatever was the source of said smell, was obviously getting much closer!

even the tiger reacted, and looked up alertly to check what was coming.

i knew that smell!

as i turned around from behind me came a powerful bellow... followed by a gruff angry voice. "traumador the tyrannosaur," the intruder addressed me by name! "you've got a lot of nerve, showing up at my zoo unannounced!!!"

turning around i let out, what i'm sure was a very loud audible, eep. towering over the public viewing area, was now the bulk of a massive bull ceratopsian... which instinctively had me slightly panicked! as the horned dinosaurs can be a titch on the reactive side. especially when facing down their ancestral predator...

however i remained calm. in fact i was suddenly overwhelmed with joy!

no i wasn't going crazy or craving an early death... as again with any other ceratopsian i'd have been concerned at the situation, me pinned between it and a tiger proof fence...

this wasn't just any ceratopsian though... this was norman a centrosaurus, and boy did the two of us have a lot of catching up to do!

to be continued with an odd old friend...

calgary zoo- australia

i won't be covering the whole zoo. due to distracting circumstances (next post) i only visited and took photos of about half the zoo. though this saddens me a little, i at least had seen all the missed sections before.

however i do one more section of the zoo i have good photo coverage of. that is the australian house. though this is a misleading name. in addition to having many critters from down under proper, for whatever reason the calgary zoo has lumped in several animals from south america as well...

in good news this building hasn't changed much since i was a hatchling. including my favourite the kangaroo pit.

which of course has a number of kangaroos wandering around within it! red kangaroos to be precise, as there are quite a few different types to potentially choose from.

the kangaroos aren't alone down there though. their kept company by my favourite flightless bird, emus.

their cheeky fluff balls. they are constantly scouting the enclosure perimeter for shoe lace or toes to peck at. as again this outdoor enclosure is a pit, and thus we looking at the animals are high above them. putting your shoes at emu height. so when here watch out when they are close... :P

inside they have the reputed (but unconfirmed or deserving) "most dangerous modern bird", the crested cassowary. i think it is sad they have earned this reputation.

though they have a very sharp claw on their foot (much like a raptor dinosaur) that they do use for kicking threats, they don't seek out things to attack. more to the point the australian cassowary is the one under constant threat, and is on the brink of extinction...

i also liked this cute little blue tongued skink!

i'm embarrassed to say i took the photo of this guy, thinking how cool his pose was. however now coming to the blog post i can't for the life of me, remember what he (or she) was! i have trouble keeping mammals apart at times!

the little cavy was unbelievably cute, but hard to photograph... seriously out of the 10 photos i took of it this was the only one that turned out! at least i got it...

finishing off the whole building was the cool nighttime/nocturnal house, in which they simulate night conditions for a variety of animals that prefer the darker times. of course my camera wouldn't really work in here, so you'll just have to enjoy this attempt at an arty shot of a silhouetted frog.

calgary zoo- african rainforest

wrapping up the calgary zoo's african complex, we hit the transalta rain forest centre.

right away in the front entrance they have some cool reptile displays.

such as this rather fancy chameleon. i'd look as smug as him if my skin could change colour like his!

there was one case though, i couldn't spot anything at all in... oh well.

i favourite of the reptile greeters (who admittedly were further into the building) were my distant ancestors the crocodiles. these were west african dwarf crocodiles to be precise.

still kind of neat to think my kind came from something similar to one of those guys millions of year ago!

here's a better picture of them here.

moving right along was a very pretty tank of african river fish. this being a zoo's aquarium, had me totally onboard with this section of the zoo! if there is nothing i like more than an aquarium, i haven't found it yet!!!

next you enter an indoor aviary. sadly as it is indoors, it doesn't quite live up to melbourne zoo's or even the one in invercargill's botanic garden's aviary. though many of the birds here were cool...

i especially liked the african spoonbill. i have a weakness of spoonbills, which may not be my favourite type of cousin, they are still high on the list. i have to say this african genus looks a lot more dignified then their australasian cousins the royal spoonbill!

this building of the zoo also housed the gorillas... oh how i hate gorillas! (if you're wondering why just watch any [good] version of king kong, and you should be able to figure it out ;P)

even the cute little baby gorilla wasn't enough for me to pass this spot by quick...

the last thing i'm covering on the blog (as you really should just visit the zoo if you can) is the wild african hunting dogs. these guys are super cool, one of the only wild forms of dog in the world, and i've never seen them at a zoo before (mind you i haven't been to as many zoos as i'd have liked).

calgary zoo- african savannah

onward and upward through the calgary zoo we go!

our next stop is one of the several buildings of the african complex of the zoo. this first one houses some of the coolest african animals around...


this is the central "lobby" as it were. you get a great view of the giraffes, from across that really big pool...

of course the question you might ask, is why put a huge water tank in the middle of the african house?


so that the hippos have somewhere to hang out of course!

this has to be one of my favourite things at the zoo (besides the prehistoric park). partially as it is altogether much like an aquarium, and i DO love my aquariums... but it also gives you a rare view of what it is to be a hippopotamus!

my only compliant, is that due to their life style, it is hard to take photos of the hippos... the water gets all murky with hippo poo...

however in a cool true to nature fashion, the calgary zoo has stocked the pond full of fish that eat this gross hippo byproduct. sadly not fast enough for my photos to true out better then this...

getting back to the giraffes, i've always loved these guys. despite their being boring mammals... they are the closest modern creature you'll come to seeing a sauropod!
if you visit during a warm time of the year, you can view the giraffes both inside and outside... but we'll talk about outside in a second...

while i was visiting this time, i was lucky enough to see a baby giraffe running around and playing amongst the adults! man baby giraffes are just too cute! they're all legs, and legs that don't know where they are going!!!

back to the outside exhibits, though i'm sure in the winter there are indoor observation options, it is easiest in spring and summer to see the lions outside.
they also keep the ever funky zebras out here... (sadly they don't pack as many of the classic african zoo animals into one spot like melbourne. i only say this as a comparison mind you. both are fine zoos in their own way)

there are also some very interesting birds outside, like this marabou stork.

this is also where they keep the ostriches... which is the first time i've gotten close to an ostrich in a while.

there is a story to tell about what they had to say to me when i came to see them (remember i've been teaching myself to speak bird!), but it can wait till i've finished my review of the zoo... which has been fun so far! unlike what the ostriches had to tell me... (to be continued after the review)

taste of nature #3 bison

a bison (aka american buffalo) on a farm on the prairies of alberta.

taste of nature #2 pronghorn

a pronghorn antelope i saw on the prairies around drumheller.

we're going to the zoo. how about you? you can come too!

well my second date with lillian albertosaur (so hot!) didn't exactly start on the best note. in fact it started on one of the worst notes a date can start on i would think (though come to think of it are dates songs? how do you start a date on a note?!?).

professor paradigm has canned lillian from her current job, not only leaving her unemployed, but stranded her down under...

now, not to fret people of the web wide world. i think i have a workable plan to save lillian and her career... i hope! it can wait though.

a dates a date, and i don't want to waste it. cause this might be the last time i see lillian in a long time!

so in order to take her mind off all that's currently troubling her, i've brought her to a place that always cheers me up...

the ZOO!

the melbourne zoo to be precise. even though i haven't been to this zoo personally, i've heard good things about it.

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lillian was intrigued by my choice. she hadn't really been to a zoo for fun ever (apparently she'd been to a couple for travelling exhibits, but of course that makes it a work thing).

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so i had a unique chance to hopefully impress and entertain the girl of my dreams!

first thing we saw once inside the zoo gate was a bunch of swamp hens!

they looked like duller versions of a new zealand pūkeko, but are still neat. pūkekos are among my favourite of new zealand birds.

unlike a pūkeko you could get real close to these guys though!

i think it was cause living in the zoo they were really used to visitors coming up close to them. a fact i took advantage of for my photos!

well since we were in an australian zoo it made sense to hit the australian animal section first, and check out the locals as it were.

one of the first critters you see is an emu.

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emus crack me up. they're just so scruffy!

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this was a chance for me to really show off for lillian. i've of course been learning bird speak, and one type of bird i can actually carry on a bit of a conversation with are ratites. this is the family of modern birds most famous large flightless birds are a part of (like ostriches, moas, and kiwis). i think due to their being a more primitive set of birds their language hasn't evolved or changed as much in 65 million years from my coelurosaurian language as other birds' have.

lucky for me, my conversation with the ostrich camelus in invercargill wasn't a fluke! the emus here could understand me, and a couple were in a chatty mood.

i was thrilled. seems i have a new language to put under my belt (i already speak 6)!!!

now of course as i was on a date i didn't want to waste too much time chatting to anyone (or is that anything?) other than lillian. so i didn't get into any topics as... well interesting i guess would be the word for it... as with camelus the ostrich (rather than retell that whole confusing tale just click here for the back link). just some simple greetings and how do you does.

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lillian though not understanding most of it, was indeed a little surprised i had such a talent. i think the only thing about lillian that bothers me at moment is how much she looks down on me.

next up was the classic australian animal. the kangaroo...

i was really happy i snapped this action shot!

there were a lot of kangaroos, and i can't complain now about not seeing any in australia. though it would have been cool to see some in the wild, but maybe later...

i can't get over how solid an animal the hairy nose wombat is. the thing is like a walking brickwall!

next up was one of my favourite aussie critters. the monitor lizard... well okay they have lots of different types of them down here (and monitors do live in lots of other places throughout the world).

monitor lizards are just cool. their among the most intelligent of lizards and are very well adapted predators. that's not even taking into account their being direct ancestors of mosasaurs or snakes!

of course it wouldn't be an aussie animal stop without a mandatory koala bear shot. have to say despite the cuteness, these guys seriously stink... man it was a few meters up the tree and i could still smell him!

next up was a really cool enclosure. a giant bird cage! (sorta like the one in jurassic park 3... only not lame or unrealistic)

so apart from lillian barely fitting inside this was an ubber neat experience. there was a ton of space just filled with bird that you could walk around.

among these were several types of herons.

i got real close to this rosella.

there were lots of parrot looking fellows around too.

again lots of parrot looking (or possibly actual parrots... i shoulda read the signs more carefully!) this time hanging out with a galah.

this was one of my favs. some random lizard that for some reason had been in one of the water ponds, and was now climbing out as of this photo. he wasn't supposed to be in the enclosure as i couldn't find him on any of the signs (which i concentrated so much on i forgot some of the birds!)... so i'll call him spider lizard, and i'll tell you he can do whatever a spider lizard does.

from here we entered the "normal" part of the zoo. that is to say the rest of the animals came from elsewhere in the world.

though this tank of water was supposed to have an otter in it, none showed up while i was here. boo!

at the same time with all the fish it felt like an aquarium, and i do love those.

they were big fish too!

now how much more zoo can you get than this photo? really?!?

i can't believe i saw zoboomafoo... or his cousin. not sure which.

this little shrew like guy wigged me out. not only wouldn't he sit still (hence the blurriness of the photo), but he reminded me of the mammals my ancestors would have had to put up with 65 million years ago...

next we wandered into the rather done up and flash elephant section. it was HUGE considering how few elephants they had (though it is good really. the elephants had tons of space to live in compared to most other zoos i've seen).

here one is. among the largest of current living land animals. their alright (okay actually i think elephants are cool), but their kinda average for to us mesozoic alumni. lillian herself is about the same weight as one.

they had a whole pond full of pelicans. which is awesome cause i love pelicans!

their such graceful yet silly looking birds. that and their big. way bigger than they should be. yet there they are!

on the other end of the ackward yet graceful size scale was a family of blue penguins. their such cute little things! and man can they move in the water...

onward and upward through the zoo we crusied. past this giant pond, which the sign said should be full of turtles. i thought the sign was lying as there were no turtles at all till...

we came almost full circle around the pond, and there were ALL the turtles!!!

i made a stop off to check the king of the modern jungle, mr. lion. he should be glad he is living these days. i have to say my ancestors being the king of their day woulda made short work of this puddy cat...

of course lillian loved the meerkats. which are cute as...

or in the case of this reflection cute as squared!

for some reason the platypus house was not in the australian animal section of the zoo... but it was cool. though as platypuses are night time critters they keep their enclosure completely dark, and none of my photos turned out. so you'll just have to enjoy this statue outside the house instead.

the giant tortises outside the reptile house were awesome. i've never seen one except on TV!

by the time of the reptile house we'd been at the zoo a couple hours, and we were both kinda zooed out. so as we wandered through i took pics of the reptiles but forgot to really check the signs.

so i'll have a game of name that reptile. if you can tell me the name of any of these guys i'll edit the post and give you credit for IDing the critter!

unknown lizard

definately an iguana of the sort they used to have play us dinosaurs in those awful 60's movies.

so i thought i'd grab a shot with me and some potential movie stars... even if their movies were among the worst dinosaur movies ever!

a really cool, but now nameless snake.

so in the end my second date was salvaged. lillian had a good time, and her mind was taken off her current troubles for the afternoon. sadly after the reptile house her worries began creeping back, and she got very sad/grumpy/angry. if there is one thing you don't want to be near when it is upset like this its a female tyrannosaurid (the bigger and scarier of the tyrannosaurid genders).

sadly my time of make beliefing i was going to successful court lillian here in australia was over...

the reality was if i was going to be truely there for lillian like a mate should be, than i was going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice and let her go... hows the saying go if you love something let it go and it'll return if it loves you... which i don't get. unless that thing is a boomrang (good thing i'm in australia?) it'll just fall to the ground won't it? unless it is a bouncy ball too i guess... lillian being the in shape goddess that she is, doesn't have an ounce of fat on her...

i was going to have to make the most costly phone call of my life (well at least costly for me... lillian would hopefully gain everything from it, and that was the point)

to be continued with: the call...