Tornado!

Yup tonight when I got home from my day out they'd issued a tornado warning for my county and all of the counties surrounding me. I don't think it's going to happen as there is no wind right now, it bucketed down with rain for a while but right now it's stopped any everything is calm and there hasn't been any more broadcasts on the TV about it so I'm assuming the warning is over. Interesting though :)  [and in a PS as it's a day after I started writing this, there was no tornado here, just a bucketload of rain although 6 people were killed in Georgia storms so I count myself lucky I guess]

Today I had a really nice day out, went to the Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens and had some really nice animal encounters. It's been really hot and muggy today so I headed off to the State Museum for a bit of air conditioning after that and actually got my learning on. Photography wasn't allowed in there but I did sneak a photo of the massive shark jaws that greeted you as you entered the building. Shawk! loved it so I just had to :)

And of course here are some of the zoo pics and comments :)

Spectacled owls!

iddn't he cuuuute???!

A touch of home and there were keepers in there and I actually had a long talk to them about kangaroos and Australia. Pretty funny really, never knew I was a kangaroo expert :)

Not actually dead, just sunbaking. I'm used to seeing them like this on Hindmarsh drive ;}

a toucan baby who kept peeking round at me from behind the pole, too cute

This is Mike, and not his best side.

He was just lovely, he was sitting about 6 feet away from me just separated by a pane of glass and kept posing for me. I have stacks of photos of him but am only uploading the better ones as it takes forever to upload!

As he was sitting there he kept wiggling his toes, was so cute.

thats literally how close he was from me. Amazing and scary at the same time.

His keeper was standing next to me telling me stuff about him like he's 19 years old and will be 20 on Christmas Eve and that he's the cheeky one of the group and likes to bang on the glass to scare little kids cuz he thinks its funny. She was signing to him too which was interesting to see.

And then he walked off and just plopped himself on the ground like I was dismissed.

This gal was taking a drink, sucking it up from the pond then squirting it in her mouth.

And this cheeky bugger was scrounging for snacks over the fence. Not much there as you can see that they've done it before as there is almost no shrubbery within trunk range.

Peekaboo I see youuuu

Spot the Gila Monster....

Spot the leaf lizard

My worst nightmare

This lil cayman was just sitting there watching me watching him

There is actually a head in there somewhere... somewhere...

A rhinoceros snake!

Caught this guy mid yawn or something, got a whole series of pics but this is probably the best.

These are called inside out jellyfish. They were really neat looking, kinda like suction cups

Another touch of Australia (they also had kookaburras, galahs and wallabies - was tempted to ask the keepers where the dropbears were haha)