One bird, two bird, red bird, pink bird

The three of us had a little trip to the Tracy Aviary this past Sunday. We pick Sundays for our outings because things are a little less busy around town-- and generally the people that are out are heathens just like us! Anyway, Helena seems to really like birds, which is one of the reasons why we thought she might like this a little more than the zoo right now. Don't ask me why she likes birds...but you give her a choice of toys and she will probably pick the bird...be it a colorful peacock, a singing duck or a noisy rooster...we have them all!

Here's one of the coolest birds we saw -a scarlet ibis. I'm not sure I've ever seen something in nature (in person) that is such an all over, striking color. Way cool. Evidently Ibises are an ancient species with fossil records going back 60 million years!

At the risk of this post becoming a 'I guess you had to be there' moment, I'm going to talk about birds just a little bit longer. We also saw a pheasant from Thailand that looked like a less colorful peacock and several other unique birds from all around the world. Oh, and a giant vulture that just sat on its branch with its wings extended out, perfectly still, for the entire time we were there. CREEPY!

They had some cool flamingos, too, and I have to admit that I may have gotten a little too excited when it looked like we might get to see one flamingo have its way with another one. Maybe excited isn't the right word there. I mean, I was anticipating it being funny and entertaining. :) As one mother right next to us explained it to her child that the flamingos were merely 'playing tag', I was asking Ashford-- "Birds really DO that!?! Then what happens? They lay eggs???" We all know science isn't my strong suit. If I would have married a writer we wouldn't ever have anything to explain to each other now, would we? Anyway, as you'll see from my pictures below, the flamingo never quite sealed the deal. But that's OK, we can go back again sometime and maybe we'll all get lucky.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27437498@N04/sets/72157605562588644/

Emily :)