Images, unedited and taken with phone, from our recent trip to Franklin Park Zoo.
Category Archives: zoos
A day at the zoo
Backyard birding
Over the last nine days, I have, among other things:
■ followed the progress of the robin family that calls our forsythia bush, “Home”;
■ mowed the lawn three times (!!);
■ seen a play (Suddenly, Last Summer at the Raven);
■ visited the Lincoln Park Zoo;
■ prepared for and undergone one of those screenings doctors recommend for all of us fifty-plus folk;
■ potted a couple of new plants and repotted some older ones;
■ lost a battle against an unidentified and insistent weed in my back garden area;
■ seen a good movie (I, Tonya) and a good documentary (Jane);
■ caught up on the harrowing second season of The Handmaid’s Tale;
■ fretted about how little I have practiced my music; and
■ finished four books:
— Sometimes I Lie (Alice Feeney; 2017. Fiction.)
— Buried Child (Sam Shepherd; 1978. Drama.)
— The Idealist (Justin Peters; 2016. Non-fiction.)
— Behold the Dreamers (Imbolo Mbue; 2016. Fiction.)
For the commonplace book, from Act Two of Buried Child:
SHELLY: Can’t we just drive to New Mexico? This is terrible, Vince! I don’t want to stay here. In this house. I thought it was going to be turkey dinners and apple pie and all that kinda stuff.
VINCE: Well I hate to disappoint you!
SHELLY: I’m not disappointed! I’m fuckin’ terrified! I wanna’ go!
At the Shedd
Zoo faces
The above photos (unedited) were taken on our annual winter holiday zoo adventure. Milwaukee County Zoo is a family favorite. (Click images to enlarge.)
Adventuring
As always, all of the images in this post are my own.
Doesn’t Whistler look a bit like Vonnegut in this painting?
Charles Sheeler’s The Artist Looks at Nature (1945).
Tawny frogmouths at the Milwaukee County Zoo.
Between and among adventures, we had time to catch up on Colony (and discuss the apparent Lost parallels, including Snyder = Ben and “Not everything is as it may seem”), finish a few books (Shylock Is My Name is well worth the effort), and plan a few more excursions — although not for over the holiday. By design, our three-day respite will not take us further from home than half the distance of our longest bike ride.
What have you planned for the long weekend?
Christmas Day at Brookfield Zoo
At the Milwaukee County Zoo
Christmas Day at Brookfield Zoo
At the Lincoln Park Zoo
Early this year, I accompanied my daughter on a visit to the Milwaukee County Zoo for a series of primate behavior observations. While she made copious notes and narrated what she was seeing and how it dovetailed what she was learning in her anthropology course, I took image after image, many of which she used as references for illustrations she made to complement her field notes. Since that rather magical day, I look at primates much, much differently. I think I have begun to see them.
The above images were taken on December 11 at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
