Nature – Page 17 – Roving Sun

March 18, 2023

First Cherry Blossoms of 2023

While the official National Park Service bloom watch shows the Tidal Basin cherry trees as just entering the puffy white stage today, some of our local cherry blossoms are already blooming! We found a few examples by a local road and other ones that are likely going to start opening very soon. Also in the region, we’re waiting for the cherry trees at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens to bloom, that is expected to happen at the end of the month.

February 25, 2023

A Winter Day at the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

We headed to the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens after lunch today. It was snowing a bit when we arrived, though it was too warm for any of it to stick. At the gardens, we saw some flowers that had been planted. A few trees were beginning to bloom, perhaps a bit earlier this year due to recent warm weather across the region. As for birds, we didn’t see too many, mostly a few Canada Geese near the entrance and quite a few American Crows flying around.

February 5, 2023February 15, 2023

City of Westminster

After a very early arrival in London, we dropped off our bags at our hotel and headed over to Westminster. We walked across the Thames and by Big Ben and headed into St. James Park. We walked past the lake, taking some time to look at all the British birds. We arrived at Buckingham Palace in time to get a good spot to view the changing the guard ceremony. Afterwards, we headed directly to Wellington Arch where we caught the Underground to Piccadilly Circus where we had lunch. We then continued onward through Leicester and Trafalgar Squares, soon reaching the Thames once again. We crossed via the Jubilee Bridge, continuing along the Thames back to where we started our day!

January 2, 2023January 5, 2023

Singapore Zoo & River Wonders

We headed to the Mandai Wildlife Reserve‘s Singapore Zoo via taxi and arrived slightly after opening time. It much cooler earlier in the day and with less crowds. It turns out some of the enclosures were still being cleaned and not all the animals were out yet so we had to backtrack a bit at the end of our visit. We ended up seeing many animals, including a large selection of monkeys and apes. They also had various big cats and many of the usual zoo animals.

After lunch, we visited their adjacent River Wonders park. This was a bit like an outdoor aquarium, with the addition of pandas and monkeys.

December 29, 2022January 5, 2023

Night Safari

We visited the Mandai Wildlife Reserve’s Night Safari in the evening. It is essentially a dedicated nighttime zoo. Timed entry is used to control crowds, we arrived at 8:15pm. It was obviously pretty dark. There was just enough lighting to be able to see the animals, though not always very clearly. Definitely an interesting and very unique experience! Particularly with the larger animals as generally you’ll never get to see them when its dark outside in a zoo setting.