Friday, August 27, 2010

The Central Park Zoo

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that Central Park has a zoo. Not quite as big and complete as a regular zoo, but it is so well put together and organized in such a way to maximize the relatively small space it occupies in Central Park. If it wasn't for the occasional urge to look up at the Manhattan skyline, you could almost forget that you are in the middle of an urban metropolis. For a split second, we thought we were at the much larger and more complete Bronx Zoo. The Central Park Zoo is ingeniously able to pack in all of these animals for our enjoyment year round: 

- the sea lions at the garden pool
- polar bears and penguins at the Polar Circle exhibit
- red pandas (small and brownish, looks more like a common raccoon) and the snow monkeys at the Temperate Territory exhibit
- snow leopards (the zoo's newest exhibit)
- ducks, swans, and from the Tropical Zone: lemurs (think, the Madagascar children's animated movie), a sloth, a tamandua (a Brazilian anteater), peacocks, turtles, frogs, many exotic birds, magnified views of ants hard at work, snakes, and bats (too-many-to-count, creepy bats flying non-stop)

Not to be missed is the penguin feeding at 2:30p and the sea lion demonstration and feeding at 4:15p, and the Children's petting zoo complete with a feeding section, and other fun places to climb and explore.

Liam has become quite vocal and decisive in his preferences, so picture-taking lately has been limited. After all, time well spent is the precious little time we have to enjoy carefree moments with our family without all of the constant photo snapping. I find it better to sometimes forgo the picture taking and take the time to explain things to the satisfaction of my inquisitive little boy. I did, however, manage to take these cool pics:

My little angel



Caught in the act!
(I didn't realize what was happening until after I took this photo. You may click on the photo to really see what I'm talking about.)



Fascinated by the penguins swimming close to the glass.


Very active ducks




With Katarina
(my long-time friend Helena's beautiful daughter)

Getting a push from Connor
(Helena's handsome teenage son)

Oh, how he loves all the attention and cuddling!

Exclaiming, "Adventure is out there!" (From the movie UP)
Basically, he is just really happy that my friend Helena bought him the Sponge Bob creamsicle that Mama initially refused to get for him.


2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Zoos are all the rage in Garrett's world right now. After our visit to the Bronx Zoo last week, he's been constantly asking to go to "another zoo." (I told him that if he'd start staying dry again at night, I'd take him to "another zoo." It's amazing how well motivation of this sort works!)

vdg family said...

The zoos are so fun! My problem is that my kids run three different ways when we go there because there is so much to see and things to climb and animals to feed. :)