November 24, 2013

After spending a week singing songs about turkeys with toddlers and their parents, the first image I was compelled to capture was this one. As most of the rest of the Minnesota Trail was quiet, I started across the bridge to the Northern Trail.






The first thing that caught my attention was the way leaves were skating across the newly-formed ice on the lake. It lost a little something when viewed on a small scale.
 

The noise of a woodpecker (in the open, not in the MN Trail exhibit) was the next thing I noticed.

Like the female moose we saw a few weeks earlier, a stray caribou was near the front of the exhibit.











When he/she noticed my presence, however, he/she quickly re-joined the other caribou.
FUN FACT OF THE DAY:  Caribou have a tendon that clicks when they walk.  They use the sound to keep track of each other.

  I have been on a mission to catch the Asian small clawed otters awake (I had heard a dad commiserate with his child a week or so earler: "They're always asleep!"). A volunteer suggested arriving early when they were checking out their fresh water, etc., so I was not hopeful having had a late start. A wonderful surprise -- they were awake, and later, on the move.

I would've taken more pictures at the farm had I known that it would be closed in December. The goats were watchful, hoping I would stop to get some food from the dispensers.

"Selfie Sunday" was observed with this picture of a bird on the Tropics Trail (hopefully I'll be able to supply his name soon).