A Trip to the Seneca Park Zoo

Although I have done one quilt with lilies, I always take pictures as I am sure I will do another one some day.  I love these colorful lilies.  When I was a kid, we had a lily that would always send out its first bloom on my birthday.

This is one of the two cubs born a couple of years ago at the zoo.  If you look closely at his body, you  can see the faint spots that the cubs always have.  He was a beautiful animal!!  His sister was nearby with mom and her spots were more defined still.  This big boy dragged this huge bone everywhere with him!!

Although I see lots of alligators down in NC, this one was wide awake unlike most of the zoo animals!!  Definitely prehistoric looking, isn't he?

The baboons were very playful as usual.  I saw lots of them in Africa and they are very destructive -- they climbed all over the car we were driving.

I never tire of the raptors even in captivity.  This is a Bald Eagle that had been injured but found this good home.

The Snowy Owls were all over up north here while I was in NC -- they even traveled as far as Florida this  year but I didn't seem them in the wild so this will have to do!!

Roses, Roses and More Roses -- Maplewood Park

It was such a gorgeous day out, it seemed like the perfect time to go visit Maplewood Park, another of the parks designed by Frederick Law Ohmsted.  Later on they will have a rose festival in the park but with the warm temps, I figured that the roses would be in pretty much full bloom.  They have an amazing collection of 3000 rose bushes covering about an acre of land.  The festival is usually in mid-June but you can see there were many roses in full bloom (and even some over the hill already).

This was one of my favorites called The Julia Child.  There were many shades of gold and yellow and it is a floribunda and there was a carpet of color.

You can see how the park is set up here with rows and rows of rose bushes in the bright sun -- good thing it was a nice cool breezy afternoon!

Another gorgeous display of color.  There were a lot of these pink bushes.

This was my very favorite.  It was climbing up a trellis on the side of the park.  I usually prefer the really double roses but I loved the colors and texture of this one.  As it aged, it turned whiter.  

This was another one I liked a lot called Scentimental (it's in the collage up above as well) and as its name indicates, it has a wonderful strong scent as many of the roses did.  With the slight breeze, the whole area just had this wonderful aroma!

This was another view down the row of roses with the stone wall to the left which of course had more roses and another path.

And a picture of the nice husband who patiently waited for his wife to tour the whole area -- he got through it much faster than I did!!

And here is a totally random picture of the Serendipity quilt I am working on now.  I am hoping to have it eventually large enough to fit on the king sized bed in the blue bedroom at the beach. It is much subtler than this picture shows -- I think because the main fabric is a sateen.  There is no where near this much contrast.  I will be using white as the filler in the background as well.  This is a different version of the block than I have done before as I didn't think the fabric was "strong" enough to make stars in the middle of the hexagons.  It was hard to find the lights I needed in my stash but I think I have enough.  The block with the darker greens may not make the cut -- it was the first block and this has happened before....  

Memorial Day Treat -- A Trip to Rochester's Seneca Park Zoo

None of these count as real sightings as they were all taken at the zoo and many through fences but it was a day for the "pussy cats" to be out!!  This lovely female Bengal tiger had just finished most of her lunch and was coming back for more.  (She was for you, Priscilla!!)


I had not been to the Seneca Park Zoo here in Rochester for probably 30 plus years even as much as I like zoos in general.  It has changed incredibly from those days.  Going to zoos now is so different from years ago when the animals were in very cramped quarters with very little landscaping.  Now in many zoos, it is hard to even spot the animals (which gives you a more natural feel for sure) as there are lots of plants and landscape elements so that critters can find shade, shelter and a break from prying eyes and crying babies.  The Seneca Park Zoo was designed by the famous Frederick Law Olmsted who also designed Maplewood Park and Highland Park here in Rochester as well as Central Park in NYC.  Much of the character of this naturalistic design is still present and even though the temps were in the high 80s, it was very shady and pleasant with a nice breeze.  The zoo sits right next to the Genesee River and is part of  Seneca Park, from which it derives its name.

This is another tiger view just for Priscilla who loves her tigers.  All the animals in the zoo looked very well cared for and content with shiny coats and sleek bodies.  The hyenas certainly looked better fed than they did in the wild!

There are two female lions and one male lion at the zoo and they are fairly new occupants.  They are all very young (around two) and we did eventually see all three of them although everyone was seeking shade today.

Even the cougar posed for me today -- she had also just finished her noontime meal.

And of course the beautiful snow leopard from Asia with the very long tail and huge paws (like snowshoes I guess).  They were cooling themselves off in a spray mist that was going.  

Not to be missed were these two absolutely beautiful American Bald Eagles who unfortunately had each had a wing broken in the wild.  They seem to be thriving here and had beautiful markings.

Even the Snow Owl was out today and just beautiful.  From what I read while south, there was a huge influx of these birds into the northeast this past winter.  I have never seen one in the wild but Warren had many times when we lived in Batavia and he drove to Niagara Falls every day.  I do love the raptors.

There were flowers everywhere and lots of my favorite iris. The flower to the right was a flowering tree that we used to call a "tulip tree" when I was growing up but will have to do a little research to find out it's name. (Note:  it is indeed a tulip tree or tulip poplar but really a member of the magnolia family and the tallest tree in the Eastern US although it prefers it a little south of here!  It was a beautiful flower well hidden in the leaves.

I couldn't help but take a picture of this absolutely stunning stained glass window that was the size of a full door.  Outside of Tiffany windows, it was one of the most striking I have seen.  It was on the exit from the building that housed snakes, birds and some of the other more tropical species.  This was looking out from the inside.  I will have to find out who did this!  (Note:  It was done by Mr. Peter McGrain.)


After our trip, we headed to Joe's Crab Shack for lunch.  What a fun place and practically empty on a holiday (everyone barbecuing we figured).  The food was absolutely excellent.  This is a chain restaurant we hadn't been to before and is relatively new to the Rochester area.

What a Ducky Day!

It was a beautiful day yesterday and I was hoping to get out midday to take some more pictures of the ducks at the outlet but as I was coming back with a friend from lunch, our car was leaving the driveway and DH didn't return until late in the afternoon and no sun. I went anyway and was not disappointed. Evidently other photographers (the kinds with the fancy equipment) thought this was a good time of day to take pictures! The birds were all in a huge feeding frenzy. I had no idea that there was that much good to eat in the bay water!! Gulls were diving and the two varieties of diving ducks were also going down frequently for food. Of course there were the everpresent swans and even some mallards this time. This was looking from the outlet over to the lake.


This was a male oldsquaw which is a type of diving duck (and they were diving a lot while I was there ). I had a hard time identifying because this is their winter coloration which is most white while their summer is mostly black! Note the long skinny tail -- some people call these a long tailed duck.

I believe this was a female oldsquaw and not anywhere near as pretty.

This was the view back toward the bay. There were hundreds of gulls diving for food and making a racket. These are the deserted boat docks in the foreground.



In this mix of birds, there are the Mute Swans, Canada Geese and a few Mallards.

This was a Mute Swan swimming very nearby. They are majestic birds and if you look at the above picture by double clicking, you can see how much bigger they are than the Canada Geese.

These are two Lesser Scaups -- I am almost positive now that these are Lesser Scaups and not the Greater variety. Again, they are a beautiful bird.

Couldn't let the opportunity to photograph two pairs of mallards in the late afternoon. Cold doesn't seem to bother them in the least but they don't hang out with the other ducks who kind of mingle together.

What a Surprise - Northern Birds!

Since the weather was warming today, I decided it would be a good time to get down to Lake Ontario and take some pictures of the ice formations which can be pretty spectacular this time of year. Here are bunches of people just hanging out on the frozen Irondequoit Bay. The temps were close to 50 so there was a lot of melting going on but no one sunk while I was there -- there were tons of cars and I felt like I was in Minnesota - yah.

Trying to get to abovesaid ice formations was not possible!! I felt like I was back at Crater Lake, climbing piles of snow to get the best view. My big surprise was that there were all kinds of birds just sitting there on the lake waiting to have their pictures taken!! These were quite a distance away on the Lake, but I believe they are Ring Necked Ducks (the females).

This was my first sighting and they didn't cooperate by getting very close. This is a duck called an Oldsquaw. I saw many of these. They have a very long tail which you can see in the back.

These I believe are Lesser Scaups -- a male and a female. They were not hanging out with a flock but were in amongst the swans near the outlet.

These I believe are the male Ring Necked Ducks which have a ring around their bill and the white eye patch. It was difficult to discern these different breeds but hopefully I haven't screwed up too badly!

This was looking south over the frozen bay. On the other side of the street is Lake Ontario.

These are our year-round residents -- the mute swan which is an invasive species from Europe. We saw lots of these in Switzerland on the fresh water lakes. They may be invasive but they are beautiful I think. This is the outlet where the Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario. The bridge crossing this intersection is only open from November through April 1 because of boat traffic. When we first moved here, there was no opening between the bay and the lake!

This is another view of the swans. I have taken pictures of these in the spring nesting on their new eggs. They build nests in the marshy areas along the lakes and bays around here.

Genesee Riverwalk on a Perfect Spring Day

For those of you who haven't yet walked the wonderful path along the Genesee River in Charlotte, get on those hiking shoes!! It is an easy beautiful walk through woods and then across a lengthy boardwalk that crosses over the marshes. It was amazing that there were not more people out on this holiday weekend -- it is indeed one of Rochester's treasures.




This is my daughter Zann from Seattle with Warren just before the boardwalk part of the pathway. They were waiting for me poking along.


This is one of the many mallards that were along the way. There were even some babies off in the distance.



This is a mama-to-be mute swan slipping off the nest for a minute so we could get pictures of her eggs.



This is dad keeping an eye on what mom was doing and also clearing a pathway to the main pond area. He was very busy while we were watching.



This was looking down the river toward the lake from one end of the boardwalk area.
These were some of the many pretty wildflowers that I saw along the way. I think they are wild geraniums but not sure about that!

I have no idea what these bushes cascading with pink blossoms were. They were also in white and looked like honeysuckle but I always thought that was a vine.

I just liked the lacey appearance of these fragile flowers.


This is the view down the boardwalk area. You can see it wasn't very crowded which is fine with me!!