Sidney Aquarium

We recently visited the aquarium in Sidney (the Centre for the Salish Sea). I enjoy seeing the weird and wonderful creatures that live in the sea around us. It's a challenge to take photographs at aquariums - not much light, dirty glass, reflections, people in the way. Sometimes I don't even try but this time I did and I got a few that I liked.

Nudibranchs are a favorite. "sea slug" doesn't sound very appealing but they can be very colorful. This Hooded Nudibranch isn't very colorful but has a fantastic shape, a bit like a venus flytrap.

They also look a bit like sea jellies.

Tentacles seem to be a common theme with sea creatures.

The fish here are quite different from tropical fish but they can still be quite colorful.

Last but not least, a few Decapods (crabs, lobsters, shrimp). "decapod" means 10 legs but they can have up to 38 "appendages", they just call 10 of them "legs".

Seattle Aquarium

Shelley and I took a short trip to Seattle on the Clipper passenger ferry. The ferry ride itself is longer, but because it leaves from downtown Victoria and goes to downtown Seattle, it's shorter than going to Vancouver. And we stayed at the Edgewater Hotel which is only half a block from the ferry terminal in Seattle.

We spent our first morning at the Seattle Aquarium. It's not huge, but it's a nice aquarium. We passed this suitably themed mural on the way.

Aquariums are a challenge for photography between the dim lighting and the glass and water and moving subjects. It didn't help that I started out with my camera at the wrong settings (leftover from a previous session). It's almost surprising when one turns out.

Amazingly, my aging iPhone sometimes does better than my expensive camera.

I prefer shooting stills rather than video, but sometimes it takes video to capture something, like these cuttlefish and anemone fish. (also by iPhone) I think cuttlefish are very cool. They are related to octopus and squid.

Anemones are also pretty cool.

And sea stars

The aquarium also has an outside area with harbor seals, oystercatchers, and killdeer, all of which we have in front of our place in Victoria.

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Tacoma Zoo & Aquarium

I had noticed the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium on Google maps and since we were going right by, we stopped in for a visit.

It was a nice little zoo, spread out in a park like atmosphere. Sometimes my favorite animals from zoos are the unofficial visitors and tenants. That turned out to be the case this time.

A fellow older-gentlemen-with-big camera pointed out these Northern Pacific Tree Frogs. We get them in BC as well, but I haven't seen them there. And the one had such a great background on the flowers.

I don't see as many American Robins in Victoria as I used to in Saskatoon. There were a group of them in with the Muskox.

Along with some Dark-eyed Junco's

And one of the official residents:

The juvenile Arctic Fox looked like a cute puppy.

For some reason the wasps liked this sign. I think this is a Bald-faced Hornet.

And a European Paper Wasp:

There were lots of flowers around the zoo. I always like the bright colors of these ones:

One of the zoo staff pointed out this one just opening up. It was about the size of a grapefruit.

These ones looked like Hibiscus flowers, but much larger as you can tell in comparison to Shelley's hand.

PlantNet says this is Devil's Tobacco

The aquarium part isn't very big but they are renovating a second section so they should have more in the future.

Sea otters are cute even when they're snoozing.

We just caught the end of the "bug" talk. I had to elbow my way through the kids to get a look at some of the creatures like this handsome scorpion.

The parakeet aviary where kids could feed them was a popular spot.

One of the nice things about this zoo was that a lot of the exhibits were designed so you didn't have to look through bars or wire or dirty glass. This part of the tiger exhibit did have glass but it wasn't bad for photographs. And the tiger posed for us.

Lately it seems everywhere I go there are Cross Orbweavers.

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Ucluelet

We wanted to visit the aquarium so we drove over to Ucluelet for the day. Waiting for the aquarium to open I took a few photos around the dock.

Interesting reflections with a common merganser going by



This Black Turnstone (I looked it up later) was skittish and didn't really want its picture taken. In flight it had a beautiful pattern on its wings. I took photos of related Ruddy Turnstones in Belize last winter.



This crow was working on getting the marrow out of a bone of some sort. It didn't care if I took photos of it. (That's frost on the wood.)



Across the bay I spotted the white head of a bald eagle in a tree but it was too far away for decent photos. There were also jelly fish floating in the water beside the dock.

This sparrow (Lincoln's?) was also a cooperative subject, although it didn't stay in one spot for very long.



We visited the Ucluelet aquarium quite a few years ago when it was in the previous tiny building. At that time they were raising money for a new building (we donated). It was nice to see the new building - quite an improvement. It's not a huge fancy aquarium like the Vancouver one, but it's run by a non-profit society and it's interesting because it's a catch and release aquarium so everything is local. One of the tanks has been running for years. It started out with a bare chunk of concrete. The water is circulated from the ocean and the concrete is now completely covered and encrusted with a huge variety of creatures that colonized it from the water.

I would have loved to take more photos, but the sides of the tanks weren't very clear and taking photos through the surface doesn't work that great.

This sea urchin was poking out of the water, and very colorful.



A different anemone from the kind you see in the tide pools



And this starfish was just below the surface. The details on these creatures are fascinating.



This is a closeup of the top of a starfish



I didn't quite manage to get all of this snail in focus



We had lunch at the Black Rock Oceanfront Resort restaurant that had a great oceanfront view.

We also did a few hikes in the area on the Wild Pacific Trail. It doesn't seem fair that the Salal is flowering when it's full on winter at home.



This looks a bit like another flower, but I think it's just leaves changing color



The sun was melting the frost on these cedar branches



Another Bald Eagle in the distance. When we tried to move closer it flew away.



And a few reflection shots because I can't resist them. This is the reflection of a log





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