Central New York Zoo News

Good news and bad news for two Central New York zoos.

The last Siberian tiger at the Utica Zoo has died. Monona was euthanzied due to complications from kidney disease, from aging. Her sister, Wingra died last year. The two tigers came to the zoo in 2001 (wow, they seem to have been there longer!). They were named for two lakes in Madison, Wisconsin, the location of the zoo where they were born.

We loved seeing the tigers at the zoo, it was always the highlight of every visit. Our last visit, about two years ago, we saw both tigers out and about. Usually, they are skulking behind trees, but that day they were walking around and playing with each other. It was great. I’m very sorry to see them go. You can read about our visits to the Utica Zoo here and here.

Such beautiful animals.

The Rosamond-Gifford Zoo in Syracuse has some good news– a new baby patas monkey was born this past month, on January 7th. The baby’s proud parents are monkeys Addie and M.J. Apparently, the baby is unnamed until the zoo crew knows whether the monkey is a boy or girl. The crew says they have a “hands off” policy so that the monkeys will bond to the baby. So far, Addie has allowed only her daughter to handle the new baby. Sounds like she’s a good mom. Lucky zoo visitors may get a peek of the new baby in the monkey section of the zoo.

Photo courtesy Rosamond-Gifford Zoo, photo by Amanda Beamish

You can read about our short visit to the Rosamund-Gifford Zoo here. It was short because a thunderstorm that day caused the zoo folks to close the zoo, as a precaution. So I never got to see the penguins.

Photo Hunters: Balanced

Pardon me while I whine: this theme is another hard one! wah! Why can’t we have something like “Victorian” or “urban” or “history”? I’d have loads of stuff for those.

Alas, balanced is this week’s theme. Ah well, it’s probably a good thing to be challenged; keeps you sharp! OK, so here’s what I scrambled to provide!

This is the world’s smallest church. It’s in the middle of a pond, in Oneida, NY. It can hold three people! You can read more about our trip here. I’d say the little thing is well balanced– enough for it to float on the water like that.

Here’s my son and daughter, on the moon, balanced despite the obvious lack of gravity. Photo taken at Syracuse’s Museum of Science and Technology.

Another photo at the MOST. You are supposed to be able to lift that ring and create a large bubble around you. We tried and Read more

Photo Hunters: Birds

Ugh, I am TERRIBLE at photographing live birds. Either I need a better camera, a quicker and steadier hand, or slower moving birds… because they always come out blurry!

So I fudged.

Here’s a nice bird. HA! Taken at Syracuse Hancock Airport.

I DID try to snap photos of the cute wrens flying around the airport! To no avail…

Here’s a cute new bird hat we got yesterday! We were asked to try out the Tofurkey Soda, which tastes like turkey and gravy. Ummmm…. it was awful! You can read our entertaining review here.

Oh WAIT! I DID photograph a bird, once! Here’s our visit to the Utica Zoo. This is a Whooping Swan. He tried to eat my camera (probably because it takes such lousy photos of his buddies).

Read more

The Utica Zoo in 2009

The Utica Zoo charges no admission during the winter months! We try to take the opportunity to visit during this time. It was a warmer winter day (late March), so most of the animals were perky and curious. And we discovered a few new things that made this visit our best one yet.

My kids love the reptile area; they don’t seem to tire of it even though we’ve seen it a dozen times (or so it seems– all reptiles look alike to me). Read more