OHIO: Penguins at the Cincinnati Zoo

With penguins being my favorite creature, I thought i'd start my posts about my visit to the Cincinnati Zoo with a post entirely dedicated to them. You'd think having a Penguinurium at the Detroit Zoo i'd have my fill of penguins, but with visiting the Cinci Zoo and the chance to see some different species you can never see too many. Any chance to see some penguins I haven't seem before, yeah i'm all over that. 

There are two chances to capture a glimpse of these birdie creatures at the Cincinnati Zoo. Inside the Wings of the World indoor exhibit you'll spy the gorgeous huge King Penguins as they splash around in their pool - it was actually great to see such a deep pool too. There is something very majestic about King Penguins swimming. But over in the Children's Zoo you'll find African Penguins and Little Penguins (also known as Fairy/Little Blue). 

Little Blue's - a name owing to their blue tinted plumage is the smallest of all penguins happen to live in a warmer climate than most penguins calling southern Australia and New Zealand home. And they are adorably cute as they sunbathed in the warm Ohio heat. 

The Children's Zoo is also where you'll come across the African Penguin and a certain character that wandered around the fence as if on patrol. This charmer of a penguin loved to follow you back and forth along the fence, it was rather funny to watch. I think he was making it his mission to safeguard the penguin flock.

Aren't they just the cutest?!

KENTUCKY: Newport Aquarium

A Thursday morning downpour became the perfect excuse to pop over the Ohio River and visit the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky. Located inside Newport on the Levee the aquarium is built right alongside the river and offers some great views of down town Cincinnati. 

With 70 exhibits including the largest Jellyfish gallery (a huge hit with me - they memorize me and I could watch them for hours) in the Midwest, there's also 14 galleries and 5 seamless underwater tunnels. The aquarium takes you around the world with exhibits showing the creatures of the Amazon, to rain forests, otters, coral reefs to frogs, a great penguin exhibit and the huge Mighty Mike - America's largest American gator outside of Florida. He was HUGE. 

After you weave yourself around the exhibits and all the children, you hop you an elevator to to the top of the shark tanks - one of the countries largest open air tanks. Up top you have the chance of traversing a rope "Shark Bridge" over nearly two dozen sharks alongside shark rays, sting rays and more than 300 fish as they swim beneath you. The 75 foot long shark bridge at the Newport Aquarium is the only one like it in North America. Constructed with more than 4 miles of rope, it's pretty sturdy and there's safety netting under which somewhat restricts your view of the tank below, so seeing those sharks is a little tricky, but a fun experience all the same. 

We sadly got around the whole aquarium a lot quicker than I had expected, even with all the crowds - summer, school trips and rainy weather does that to indoor places. But for $23 each, I was expecting a little more for what became just an hours visit - that and we were extremely spoiled when we visited the Shield Aquarium in Chicago. Still I left happy seeing jellyfish and penguins. 

Where's your favorite aquarium?   

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Fancy a trip? You'll find the Newport Aquarium at;

Newport Aquarium

One Aquarium Way

Newport, KY, 41071

LIFE: Blossom Filled Zoo Trips

Like I mentioned last week, part of Joe's birthday weekend involved a trip back to our local Detroit Zoo. A year late and we finally got our Detroit Zoo membership renewed. Better late then never they say. It's a pretty exciting time to be members again - construction of the new $29.5 million penguin exhibit is well under way (set up to open next year), work is also under way building a biodigestor turning 400 tonnes of manure into a methane rich gas. Not to mention the born of a giraffe last September and the Polar Bear exhibit was voted the second best zoo exhibit in the country by USA Today.

With the Red Panda hiding away in the trees, the big cats sunbathing to the tree kangaroo (second photograph) finally making an appearance it was nice able to walk around the zoo, see all the wildlife, the crowds, all the blossom of the trees to wildflowers. I noticed they even have a butterfly garden I need to poke the next time.

I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of our regular zoo visits that's for sure.

ZOO TIMES: Penguins

Penguins have to be one of my favorite creatures (although they do battle with Kolas to be that high on the list) I love their grace in the water, how they waddle to their mating and nest building rituals. But at zoos in the US they are a bugger to photograph. Out of the three zoo's that we've visited that have had penguins - two of them have had them indoors (Detroit and Pittsburgh - just to note the Toledo Zoo does have them outside), often because winter gets too cold and summer gets too hot. Sadly that means they get housed behind glass which gets steamed up and messy from water although it's a great way for the keepers to maintain a constant 45 to 50F environment - which is key for the Sub Antarctic penguin species that you'll find at the Detroit Zoo - the King, Macaroni and the Rockhopper.

The penguins of the Detroit Zoo are housed within the Penguianrium which, when opened in 1968, was North America's first facility specially designed for penguins. The three sided enclosure is surrounded by a pool which allows the birds to swim all the way round. They even control and adjust the lighting to reflect the seasons they would experience in the wild which is key for maintaining their health, breeding and molting seasons - as you can just see in these pictures, molting season is upon the King penguins - their feathers are everywhere and we were luckily enough on our trip on Saturday to watch them being fed - it was very amusing. 

Luckily the penguins are set to get a new home with work set to commence this month on a new $21 million home which is designed to have a 25 foot deep pool, waves and snow - as a zoo member and a penguin lover - I'm really excited about this and I can't wait to see it all built and opened. I've loved seeing the online clips of the recently opened penguin exhibit at The Deep in Hull for some Gentoo Penguins (which I often visited as a teen being on the doorstep and all) so if you're in the area do check it out!

I'd love to hear your favorite penguin exhibits!