….cold, grey and windy outside but warm and calm indoors

On Sunday, despite the forecast of high winds and rain, the Turners and I ventured to the Toronto Zoo. We had a lovely day and the rain never materialized to more than a mist and the high winds held off until we left.

One of my favourite places at the zoo is the Rain Forest Pavilion. For one thing it’s very dry and quite warm in there. It houses some beautiful greenery and some very interesting birds. One of the most interesting for me was the Hamerkop. This is a medium sized bird that lives in the wetlands of Madagascar, Africa and Arabia. It is famous for the large nests it likes to build and the one at the Toronto Zoo is no exception.

Homer is free to fly around the pavilion and the staff leave nesting materials lying around for him to build his dome shaped nest. These nests can be as big as 2 metres deep and 2 metres wide. Not only has Homer used the building materials that are left for him but he’s clearly found other objects, like mittens and pieces of paper to add to his structure.

Most of the other birds were kept in more enclosed areas to protect them from flying into the cold outside. They seemed pretty content with their surroundings where there were numerous trees, perches and resting areas.

Some birds were very happy to share a space with the resident rhinoceros .