a zoo-rific day!

Today we spent 7 glorious hours trompsing around Miami Metro Zoo. The zoo is one of the top 10 in the country so we feel pretty blessed to be near it. We started out in the wings over Asia exhibit and spent at least an hour looking at the birds and fish. Garrett has gotten to be a little bird-watcher from our balcony so he paid really close attention to the birds and would follow them with his eyes all over the open-air aviary. He would startle every time they would fly too close to him- so cute. He also really loved watching the fish because we could pull his stroller right up to the glass for a perfect view. He noticed the elephants this time but not much else stands out in my memory from all of the exhibits. If the animals are too camouflaged or slow he doesn't notice them really.
Some highlights Geoff and I loved: harpy eagle, clouded leopard, river otters, baby warthogs, cheetah and porcupine thing from the show in the amphitheater.
I totally recommend the zoo to everyone no matter the age! there are little water play areas for kids but then we also saw dare i say senior citizens with their binoculars in the bird aviary, and professional photographers at almost half of the exhibits. if you do end up at the Miami metro zoo someday do be prepared for HOURS of walking. it is very spread-out which i appreciate because it gives the animals a better habitat but i also don't appreciate because we were almost running to the car at the end of the day because we couldn't wait for the walking to be over.



aviary: most birds were just flying right over our heads (or at our heads in some cases) like this really large, ugly member of the pheasant family. sorry the pics aren't great. the only birds that were in their own area were the hornibills. did you know hornbills have to throw their food in the air and catch it on the way down because their beaks are too large to allow them to eat normally.

we took a lunch break in air conditioned car. this was garrett's first try at a whole strawberry. also, the token tiger picture for my dad. again- the pic is really stinky so you cant really see them but there are 3 tigers lounging under the tree. two are orange and one is white.

some flora: