Posts Tagged ‘Fish’

It was very crowded the day we visited Sumida Aquarium, so I didn’t have the luxury of having enough room or time to take some of the pics I would have wanted to take, but some did turn out alright:

Jellyfishes at the Sumida Aquarium #1

Jellyfishes at the Sumida Aquarium #2

Jellyfishes at the Sumida Aquarium #3

Translucent Shrimp on Green Plants at the Sumida Aquarium

Penguin Display at the Sumida Aquarium

Penguins at the Sumida Aquarium

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Well worth the trip to see the world’s largest Fish Market. I ended up taking a lot of pictures of the fish that were on offer here, but when processing the pics I found that many of the shots involving the fish sellers and the delivery people were the ones that caught my attention.

Aisle in the Tokyo Fish Market #1

Aisle in the Tokyo Fish Market #2

Aisle in the Tokyo Fish Market #3

Chatting at a Fish Stall in the Tokyo Fish Market

Checking the List at Another Fish Stall in the Tokyo Fish Market

Crabs for Sale in the Tokyo Fish Market

Red Octopus at the Tokyo Fish Market

Three Red Snapper on Offer at the Tokyo Fish Market #1

Tokyo Fish Market Entrance #1

Tokyo Fish Market Entrance #2

Tray of Clams at the Tokyo Fish Market

Tray of Fish at the Tokyo Fish Market

Sea Life Berlin is a fairly small, and largely child-oriented aquarium. Good but not spectacular. The best part is the “Aquadom” which is a 25 metre tall cylindrical acrylic glass aquarium with built-in transparent elevator. Here’s a selection of pics from both:

Berlin Aquadom: Fish by Sea Urchin

Berlin Aquadom: Jellyfish

Berlin Aquadom: People Taking Pictures within the AquaDom

Berlin Aquadom: Two-banded Sea-breams

Berlin Aquadom

My office shut down for the day which extended the long weekend by another day. It was a rainy, miserable day. I wanted to see if I could get a good bird picture entry for the Themed Photo Contest on Facebook, so despite the weather I decided to head to the zoo. I figured that the crummy weather would likely keep most people away, and that interior lighting would mean that I could get some decent shots of animals without having to resort to flash.

Wrong on both counts, as it turned out. I hadn’t accounted for the school-group option, so there were hordes of kids around. Not so bad really, as in most cases I just had to out-wait whatever group was passing through so that I could take the shot I wanted. The greyness of the day meant that whatever interior light was also severely reduced, so I opted to use a fill-flash on a few occasions. In the end the images you see below were culled from a much larger number of pictures taken, many of them blurred or where the focus was not as good as I would have liked because of the poor light. I was also disappointed to find that many of the exhibits were being revamped, with fully half of the Africa Pavilion closed off, leaving the Gorillas in the other half as the main attraction, with the colourful Chiclids in there huge aquarium being the only other major thing on view.

Am happy with what I came away with below, but I think it will be awhile before I willingly return to the Metro Toronto Zoo.

Butterfly

A Jumbo Gourami

Gorilla

A pair of Spectacled Owls. I took a zillion pictures of this pair but the lighting was so poor (and I didn’t use flash) that I could never quite get the picture I was hoping to get. I’d hate to be a mouse under that stare.

A tiny mouse found scurrying outside of the exhibits in the African Pavilion

Some minnows swimming above a lost license plate in a small creek.

Playing with the macro lens again: a close-up of a small centipede (maybe a couple of centimeters in length) who stayed still long enough for the shot.

More macro fun: small bleeding-heart buds against the stony face of our garden gnome-guy.

I thought I was done for the day, and then I heard this Cardinal chirp away in our backyard tree. He posed for this shot and then flitted away.

Labels: cardinal, centipede, garden gnome, minnows

Adding further to our menagerie we went to the local pet store by Queen and Coxwell today in order to get a small aquarium and goldfish for Annie. She’s been wanting her own pet for a while now, and since Vanessa has been cleaning up after my Aunt Jane’s cat Nick (who we have been “cat sitting” while she is away on her regular holiday season trip to visit with friends in Seattle) in order to prove she can handle a cat of her own, it only seems fair to get Annie something she can look after.

I picked out a small Hagan-made aquarium kit. Small (less than 8 litres) and wholly made of molded plastic (so no seals between glass and metal that could fail), it also came with colourful orange gravel (which matches the trim and the plastic cover) a filter, plus some goldfish food and some water conditioner.

We picked out three fish. Annie chose the smallest goldfish available from a “feeder” tank and named it “Goldie” (of course). I also let her choose one from a tank of small fancy goldfish above it, whose mottled white and gold colouring she called “Snowgold”. The pet shop owner then let Vanessa pick one out and she picked a somewhat larger goldfish from the feeder tank she named “Clicker”.

Assembly took next to no time, especially since both girls were keen to help out, and so all three fish we in their new home within half an hour of us bringing them home.

Annie was beaming with happiness at the end of it all.

Next, a new kitten for Vanessa.