I have been to Lincoln park zoo quite a few times mainly for an evening stroll, but I wanted to have a wide range of animals/insects/birds to watch and photograph and Brookfield Zoo being the only one nearby(17.66 miles from my house, not that close) I had no other choice. In place of taking the CTA-Walk-Metra combination I decided to take the Walk-CTA-CTA-Pace as that saved me almost $3.50 each way. I always found the Metra to be really expensive unless I was going to suburbs like Aurora, Joliet etc. I thought that I would wake up at 8:10 am to reach the zoo by 10:30-11:00AM, but ended up waking at 10:10 AM (quite a common feature for me. :D,7:10AM being the earliest I wake up to go for work at 9:15 AM), if it’s before that I prefer not to sleep the night before. These days I have acquired an amazing amount of patience of standing alone and letting the time pass by without getting irritated ( a must have quality if you intend to travel by Pace/Metra and if you are not a very careful trip schedule planner like me).
The zoo was not as big as I expected, as I have a memory of the Delhi zoo being enormous, maybe it’s because the last time I was there I was a mere kid and all places at that time looked huge to me. I will have to revisit it the next time I am there to get the measure of things. I entered through the South Gate and have to wait 10-15 minutes to get a ticket just because some women had some troubles with her membership, and they didn’t bother to open another counter. As soon as I entered I was amazed to see how crowded it was even though it was a Wednesday. Must be because of it being summer and the kids having their summer vacation, but what about their parents, they didn’t go to work or was it just all of them decided to take a leave of absence on the same day‼…I haven’t figured it out yet…Maybe the zoo is that popular a place. There were kids of various sizes, shapes and age squirming all over the place like flies on a fruitcake and the whole atmosphere seemed to be filled with yelling, giggling and uncanny noises mostly associated with kids and their accompanying parent/grandparents. I never could figure out what all this fuss was about‼, and here I was expecting a quiet and peaceful photography trip. I soon got hold of my rushing disappointment and anger and did what I normally do in these situation (unfortunately I tend to get in these kind of situation a lot), I went about the exact opposite direction most of the people were going, i.e. I made the exit of the walk around of a particular zoo exhibit my entrance point. The plan works, although it has a higher risk of getting lost, but I never got bogged down by that as I have stumbled upon nice things when I am lost.
I started off with the Bear Grottos but only could see the black bear which was outside just because one of the attendants was filling up his small pools and he was there to lap up and splash some fresh cold water. The polar bears were all inside sleeping, and who would blame them for that, imagine their bad luck that they had to stay here in the summer. I bet they are among the very few delighted beings in Chicagoland when winter comes (me being one of them). I also saw two Sloth Bears playing around behind the rocks. They definitely have an apt name with their body hair totally unkempt and going everywhere. It made me wonder if they were named after the sloth or the other way around. I haven’t seen a sloth yet apart from in the movie “Ice Age” and occasionally in the mirror after I get into my “stay inside the house for a week and do nothing” moods :D. As I walked over to the “Lions & Tigers” section I saw the lion drowsing on top of a rock, which is probably his favorite past time as he was still drowsing when I walked past him couple of hours later but just on a different rock. The lion is a prime example of the male attitude of taking pride in doing absolutely nothing apart from sleeping, fornicating with numerous lioness of the pride and getting the first bite of the lioness kill. It’s a shame that he has to get up once in a while to fight another male for his place or run if endangered (any female of my species should take joy in the fact that I am making these comments sarcastically although the idea is highly tempting, where as the males should know how it is that we have to say stuff we don’t mean to keep things rolling ;)). The adjoining enclosure was for the tigers and only the one year old cub was out there jumping around and playing in the water. I remember the old days when after coming back from school and taking a very small nap (which was most of the time forced onto me) I was out there in the park playing in the sun. The tiger cub reminded me of how alike kids of all species are behavior vise if we move aside the physical attributes. This cub was jumping in the pool, trying to grab a ball, slipping on the edge and all that stuff kids do. I am pretty sure if its mommy was around and we had the capability of understanding their growls we would have heard the same kind of uncanny noises/dialogues I was talking before.
I so wanted to go to the “Sting Ray & Shark” exhibit but the huge line outside made me think that if I am going to stand in line let it be for the Dolphin show. So I bought the ticket for the Dolphin show for $3 and went in to the Pinniped Point as it was still an hour for the show to start and I was in no mood to stand in the line that long even for the Dolphin show. The seals and the sea lions are an amazing group of mammals. As I looked through the underwater viewing glass I pondered over the fact that they look like a large streamlined packet of fat with very shinny hair on it, but the speed with which they swim is just mind boggling ( it reminded me off a person I knew who was really fat but moved with amazing speed while playing badminton). As I moved on to the underwater viewing section of the dolphins which was mesmerizing as well, as the dolphins seem like they are the happiest mammals alive and always laughing. Can’t even imagine how a dolphin will look when irritated. All these underwater sections had small facts about the exhibit animals and it was nice to see some parents themselves acquiring that information before passing it on to their kids, while most of the others roam around just for the sake of it without even trying to learn anything. It’s really disheartening when I see people just doing things because it’s a practice without having any curiosity, I think it kind of beats the purpose of our existence. The Dolphin show was jam packed and the announcer has to revert to some verbal tricks to get people inspired enough to move little bit to the side and get some space at the end. The show was worth the money and the squishing. Dolphins are naturally playful as it being an integral part of their social structure. They are also very agile and fast which makes it a very difficult for me to get even a single properly focused shot. The group of four female dolphins (one mother and her three daughters) and one male dolphin did lot of tricks like breaching, waiving with their tails and fins, head banging etc. The best of the lot was when they stood up on their tails and swam (don’t know the proper term for it, looks like walking :D) backwards. The youngest dolphin (two year old daughter) predictably was the most playful among them all as she sometimes waived with her fins and tail and splashed water without her instructors command. I also wasn’t able to get any good snaps of them and the seals underwater even with a flash. Next time I will take my tripod and see if I can get better at it.
As I came out of the “Seven Seas” Dolphin show slightly disheartened at not being able to get a good picture, I was wondering whether I should visit the Butterfly house or go straight to the African or Hoofed animals section. I had my Macro filters (cheap substitute for an expensive macro lens that I can’t afford) and eager to see how they turn out I decided to have a go. As it turned out macro photography took me by surprise and opened another exciting aspect of the hobby I am starting to like a lot. I highly recommend this section for people with any kind of macro attachments for their cameras and if its people without any particular interest in photography don’t forget to take your magnifying glass. The vibrant colors and their well balanced composition and contrast completely spell bounded me. While looking through the lens I wondered how it will be to be shrunk to fit in their world. I felt like Alice in “Alice in wonderland” and “Through the looking glass” by Lewis Carroll. I am great admirer of Lewis Carroll and his works, which are termed as “Literary Nonsense” and consider most of the so called famous writers like J. K. Rowling has just mixed his “Literary Nonsense” with old folk tales in way more suitable to this ever growing POP culture without adding any literary value. Don’t take me wrong I am not against mixing but some additional value must be added to it, and making it more fashionable to the current generation is not a value. People might question why I am bringing J. K. Rowling specifically in the picture. Well the reason is that the first edition of “Alice in wonderland” was the most expensive children’s book ever auctioned before the “total garbage” (with no literary in it) of Harry Potter (forgot which one) broke it recently. It also shows how happy people are to eat crap if served in a shinny dish again and again and are willing to pay top dollars for it.
After spending more than an hour in the Butterfly House I walked towards the African animals section and took some half hearted pictures as my mind was still stuck on to the details of macro. I am quite pleased with my first effort after I looked at the pictures in my laptop in actual size and how the closes up filters are holding up. Even though I would like to get even closer shots where the image is sharper and clearer but for the time being I have to satisfy myself with my current equipment. So I decided to just walk around and get macro shots of flowers and insects which were in abundance outside. Quite a few time when I was crouching near a bush to get close-ups passersby’s asked me if there was something special in there and on my replying that it’s just a flower or a bee they let out a sigh which probably meant ”hmmm..Another of those nut jobs”…:D. But it’s an experience to actually see all the stuff I have read about butterflies, bees, wasps, dragonfly etc in biology books in school and to capture it in my camera. I saw the butterflies land on a flower and sucking the nectar and then rolling their suction tube back before flying away, while some pollen grains got stuck on its body hairs (that’s how the flowers get pollinated , for those people who have forgotten it ) was just awesome. At that time all I can say was WOW! ‼.
There were some small exhibits of Desert and Asian rainforest wildlife. I saw some small animals like meerkat, porcupines, some species of rodents and a very small fox which was one of the cutest thing in the zoo (unluckily as the fox just comes out at night in the desert so the light was very dim and no flash photography was allowed). One woman though shamelessly kept taking pictures of the animals even after being reminded by her husband of the “no flash” signs. I hope somebody wakes her up every night by suddenly turning on the lights and sound at maximum capacity to make her understand how badly it feels.
The Brookfield zoo also has a small nature trail around a lake and wolf woods where no animal is on exhibit. You just happen to see some if you stumble upon it while walk quietly. This is the way I would like the zoos too be, where people don’t take sighting of an animal for granted and are only rewarded for their perseverance. I understand it has some logistical difficulties but it can be done, and if we can’t think of a way to keep our cohabitants on earth in a more comfortable and suitable way for them while still keeping the possibility open for children’s and adults coming to see them and gain some knowledge and insight then we don’t deserve the self proclaimed notion of “being gods best creation”. I think it also will keep away people who are there just because it’s a thing to be done, as even though knowledge should be easily available but should only be passed on when there is a curiosity for it so that we don’t take everything for granted.
Copyright@ 2008 Rahuljit Pal
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