Living the "wildlife"

There was housework, homework, schoolwork, and who knows what other kind of work to be done, but our eyes met over the chaos of lunch, and Greg said, "Let's go to the zoo."

And so we did.

Mimi and Gramps gave us a year-long family zoo membership for Christmas, and it is kind of our unofficial goal to go once a month. 

We were hooked after our first visit in January, went just a a couple of weeks later in February, and have been going crazy to get back since! 

The weather this afternoon was perfect and we all needed the family time out in the real world and fresh air.

Today's visit was full of fun surprises.

The first was this bobcat, which totally ignored us:

He paced around his enclosure, obviously aware of our presence, but careful to keep his back turned.

Until...two female keepers came walking past on the path, carrying on a lively conversation together. As soon as we heard their voices, Mr. Bobcat could, too, and he turned around and watched them with great interested until they had passed out of sight and out of earshot. 

With his familiar friends gone, Mr. Bobcat settled back in to ignore us some more. 

The whole scenario was unmistakable and oh-so-fascinating!

Now that it is spring time, an exhibit we've been waiting on since January is finally open, and it was even better than we had imagined!

It's called the Wild Bird Walkabout, and is filled with parakeets. You enter three sets of double doors (to prevent escapees) into the screened enclosure full of the brightly colored birds. For a buck you can buy a popsicle stick coated in hot glue and dipped in birdseed. Then you go a-huntin'!

 SO...

 ...MUCH....

 FUN!!!

You'll notice there are no pictures of Brooklyn feeding the birdies. Almost first thing, one landed on her hand and kind of freaked her out. She wasn't interested in trying again after that! Maybe next time. :)

There we were, in a zoo full of animals, and everything came to a halt when Tyler found a ladybug.

He asked if he could keep it.

I said no.

We were happy to find the giraffes outside today:

Fun, fun, day! The gift that keeps on giving. :)

(For those of you keeping up at home, yes, this is a new seating arrangement. Effective as of the zoo parking lot today. )