Botanical Garden at the Zoo

The new Botanical Garden opened up at the Zoo yesterday. I've been waiting for over a year for them to re-open it. I use to frequent the old one quite often with my camera, macro lense and tripod in hand. I have been able to capture a few nice pictures from my visits. I enjoyed all of the flowers and the butterfly house was always lots of fun.

Purple orchid.. at least I think its an orchid, 
I love the green leaves in the background

I remember going there in the colder months, and all the glass on my camera would be quite cold because I'd driven over with all my gear in my trunk, then had to walk from the parking lot across the grounds to the building. Stepping into the humid *hot* butterfly house after being outside in -10 degree weather would fog everything up for 15 or 20 minutes. So I'd be there waiting for my lense to warm up sweating a lot because I would be wearing heavy winter clothing.

Conor and I went there on Saturday morning to check out the new digs. We parked at the south entrance and came in near the Tigers. He brought his camera too and was running around taking pictures of the flowers. It made me smile to see his enthusiasm. He'd take a picture and run over and show it to me, and go off again and take some more. It wasn't too busy there so we weren't getting in everyone's way.

To be honest, I'm not quite taken with the new building yet. It seems to have a smaller exhibition area, larger hallways, and more conference rooms. Maybe my perspective is tainted because it's still new and it felt a little sparse. Maybe I'm just rejecting change.. There didn't seem to be a lot of variety in the exhibits probably because I'm not good at distinguishing between various types of green leaves, once they start to flower and fill in, maybe I'll see it differently.

Spikey plant pod

The butterflies probably won't be there till the spring. The room where they will go is setup with a Christmas theme right now - packed with poinsettias and not much else. I'll be interested to see how they set it up once the Christmas season is over, and what kinds of other plants they`ll be putting in there.

I liked the effect of the shallow depth-of-field

As you can see, I like to get close and capture some abstract details.

Conor and I left the Botanical garden and wandered over to the Australian exhibit ( the dark house ) to look at the red-eyed tree frogs and from there went to see the hippos and the lions. It was a nice way to spend the morning.


Thanks for reading.
brad