Jackson's Field Trip to the Zoo

The kindergarten classes went to the Birmingham Zoo for their spring field trip. I was able to go and spend the day with Jackson, which was a very nice treat. While there, we had lunch (hot dogs and chips) and saw lots of animals, of course. Some of the more notable ones:

Butterflies! The zoo now has a butterfly garden that you can walk through and observe many different butterfly species.

Believe it or not, the butterflies are actually shipped overnight in these wax paper envelopes. The lady who was releasing them would slip her thumb in and flip the butterfly out (over flowers) in a way that she didn't touch it's wings.

Another new exhibit is the anteater. The kids enjoyed watching him roam around his area and get into the water.

Of course, we saw lots of different types of primates. There were a lot of monkeys playing and trying to entertain us. I think the funniest were the gorilla and orangatan. Here's Jamie, the gorilla. And Jackson, the gorilla imitator.

I don't know this orangatan's name, but he ate his broccoli for lunch. Did you?

One of Jackson's favorite animals has always been the cheetah, because it can run 70 mph. We went by the cheetah exhibit twice so he could get a good look.

One more new exhibit had fruit bats inside. The boys (Jackson and his friend Kyle) really loved watching them crawl around and eat the fruit.

Do you ever feel like this?

And you can't go to the zoo without seeing some green-slime covered animals. Jackson enjoys all animals (they're one of his passions right now) but he really likes the alligators. In with the alligators were little frogs, hiding in the slime. I guess that's a good way to protect yourself from becoming someone else's dinner.