Montevideo has a wide variety of native birds. As you might expect for South America, they seem exotic to “outsiders.” I’m still not used to having flocks of parakeets flying around the back yard, myself. The most common birds here are a Hornero (not pictured), the Tero (top picture), and the Monk Parakeet (the green birds with blue wings). I don’t know what the other pictured below is yet.

Many more shots in my Montevideo Flickr Set.

While traveling around the US, I also visited the Camden Aquarium. It’s not a bad aquarium, but doesn’t really stack up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where I’d recently visited. However, their “big” tank was impressive and nicely setup for viewing.

I had some camera issues on this trip, so there weren’t a lot of pictures.

More photos in my Camden Aquarium Flickr Set.

One of the demonstrations at the games was a Border Collie herding sheep and ducks. The presenter described their heritage, work and training.

More photos in my

The Roanoke Zoo also has a small, but excellent aviary. Probably not more than 20×20 feet, there’s a variety of birds that are obviously used to humans, calm, and beautiful.

More pictures in the Roanoke Zoo Flickr Set.

Roanoke’s zoo is small, but excellent. They make excellent use of the space that they have available and focus on animals that don’t take up a huge amount of room. It’s one of the best zoos that I’ve ever visited. I especially liked their red panda display and got what I think are some excellent pictures from it.

More photos at my Roanoke Zoo Flickr Set.

We had a very limited time to visit the Science Museum, so we focused primarily on the Aquarium. We also went up to see the “living roof” and had a meal in the restaurant (not the cafeteria). The food was excellent, probably the best food on the trip, if a little pricey. Well worth it though.

More photos in my San Francisco Science Museum Flickr Set.

We had a recurring “visit” in San Francisco. Several places we visited were in close proximity and within the territory of this hawk.

More photos in both my general San Francisco Flickr Set and my San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden Flickr Set.

Returning from my move half-way around the world and getting everything setup again, I’ll continue with the San Francisco blogs. Today’s is a video of Jellyfish that were at the aquarium. This is the first video I’ve played with and while I would have done a few things different at this point, I’m generally happy with how it turned out. The imbeded version above is available larger with the flickr version.

I was lucky enough to be at the Aquarium at Otter feeding time. The viewing stand is upstairs and was incredibly crowded, even though I did show up a half-hour early for it. It was, however, interesting to see the trainers put the otters through their moves.

More otter pictures and the rest of the Aquarium as well in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Flickr Set. This is the last post in the Monterey Bay Aquarium series.

While I’m sure that the seals were encouraged to be “at” the aquarium (probably by an availability of food and the rocks to lay on), there was nothing actually forcing them to be there or preventing them from leaving. They were an interesting view out over the bay and the aquarium restaurant (which had excellent food, by the way, but make sure you take the restaurant and not the cafeteria) looked out over the bay and the seals.

The bay also attracted a variety of birds, including flocks of pelicans which skimmed over the water near the viewing platform.

More Seal and Pelican pictures and the rest of the Aquarium as well in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Flickr Set.