i wasn't the first to visit the zoo this week!

the zoo was just about to close as i walked past the african display once more. my spirits were still somewhere in the upper atmosphere after catching up with norman a. centrosaur.

little did i realize i was about to be thrown the weirdest, luckiest, and yet oddly sinister curve ball imaginable.

as i passed the ostrich enclosure, i casually called out to the now relaxing ostriches (most of the zoo's visitors had already left for the day) "hello there!"

i of course didn't call this out in english, but rather bird speak. birds' fundamental language is just a heavily accented variation on coelurosaurian, the basal language or all bird ancestors. so i can make a half descent crack at talking to birds.

much to my surprise my simple hello invoked a very excited response from the ostriches!

"another ancient!" they excitedly chattered to each other.

this wasn't the first time an ostrich had called me an ancient (actually it is worth mentioning this isn't the first time i've talked to an ostrich full stop!)

though i was puzzled by their saying 'another'? that would imply they'd seen another dinosaur besides me around here... they could only have meant norman.

"i am an ancient," i agreed, pronouncing everything slowly as neither side of the conversation was speaking exactly the same language. "who was the other?"

ostriches liked hearing i was an ancient, but they were shocked when i asked who the other was. they all gossiped between each other, but as they were speaking fast and all at once i didn't catch much of it.

i ventured "the one with the horn on his nose," they looked even more confused. i repeated that sentence acting out a horn on my nose.

finally the head ostrich (man that sounds funny hehehehe) stated. "not the prey item," which was just plain weird. one, ostrichs eat small things like bugs and lizards, norman who weighed as much as this whole flock put together and thus a little out of their menu range. two, it sounded more like something a full grown theropod would have said (though maybe a different word then item... but i might have mistranslated that).

the ostrich answered my question. "a copy, greater sized, of you."

a bigger me... another tyrannosaurus rex!?! my suspicions immediately went to larry, but this was slightly silly. there were several more vivus t-rexs in the world (most of whom i'd met mind you).

after trying to get a name out of the ostrich several times, it just kept replying with colours... which baffled me, till it clicked in my brain. he was giving me a description of his previous visitor. based on this it sounded like a daspletosaurus to me...

which meant there'd been a member of the primoridal feather here at the zoo recently!

indeed prompting more of the story out of the ostrich there had indeed been a visitor from the pack not 3 days ago! due to the language barrier i wasn't able to get more out of the ostrich than the lot of them had been visited by "an ancient who wished to earn favouring of us".

why would a tyrannosaurid care if a bunch of ostriches liked it or not. in my experience big vivus tyrannosaurids were just as likely to eat anything different from them, than befriend it.

"she come to inform us kindly, that the prophecy much closer then ever dreamed possible."

"what prophecy?" i demanded... my last ostrich had said something about legends among the modern birds to due with dinosaurs. only she didn't know much more then that. these ones sounded like they knew a lot more!

the ostrich eyed me suspiciously. "the promise of the ancients to return and take back world that was once ours."

what did that mean? trying to get more details out of this group of ostriches didn't go so well. "you not know legend of the prophecy of return?!? i not sure i like you." with that they walked off, and won't answer anymore of my questions.

not that i had a lot of time to pester the bird brains. a couple of minutes later a zoo security guard politely insisted i make my way out of the zoo as it had officially closed 5 min ago.

as i headed out i had a chill down my spine. the pack of the primordial feather was indeed in town, just as ruffled feather had suspected. more to the point if they were popping by the zoo to boast to ostriches about enacting legends of world domination then whatever they had in this "crate" of theirs must have been as dangerous as ruffled feather was fearing. (though what i want to know is that how a legend about dinosaurs returning got started in the first place? how could any of the prehistoric ones have known about us vivus ones popping up millions of years in the future???).

this all brought me back to the task of tracking down the pack here in calgary. i'd put it off as cowtown is a HUGE city, and i hadn't seen any reason to try and futilely search it for the pack which might or might not be here. however now i knew for sure the pack was in town, and more to the point i now had a couple reasons to believe this crate was mega bad news. not only the legend of today but the fact the pack had tried to kill me in drumheller when they thought i was getting too close.

it was on... even if i didn't want it too be... i was going to have to track down the pack and somehow take this crate and its contents away from them!!!

to be continued... getting some backup

we're going to the zoo. how about you? you can come too!

well my second date with lillian albertosaur (so hot!) didn't exactly start on the best note. in fact it started on one of the worst notes a date can start on i would think (though come to think of it are dates songs? how do you start a date on a note?!?).

professor paradigm has canned lillian from her current job, not only leaving her unemployed, but stranded her down under...

now, not to fret people of the web wide world. i think i have a workable plan to save lillian and her career... i hope! it can wait though.

a dates a date, and i don't want to waste it. cause this might be the last time i see lillian in a long time!

so in order to take her mind off all that's currently troubling her, i've brought her to a place that always cheers me up...

the ZOO!

the melbourne zoo to be precise. even though i haven't been to this zoo personally, i've heard good things about it.

_

lillian was intrigued by my choice. she hadn't really been to a zoo for fun ever (apparently she'd been to a couple for travelling exhibits, but of course that makes it a work thing).

_

so i had a unique chance to hopefully impress and entertain the girl of my dreams!

first thing we saw once inside the zoo gate was a bunch of swamp hens!

they looked like duller versions of a new zealand pūkeko, but are still neat. pūkekos are among my favourite of new zealand birds.

unlike a pūkeko you could get real close to these guys though!

i think it was cause living in the zoo they were really used to visitors coming up close to them. a fact i took advantage of for my photos!

well since we were in an australian zoo it made sense to hit the australian animal section first, and check out the locals as it were.

one of the first critters you see is an emu.

_

emus crack me up. they're just so scruffy!

_

this was a chance for me to really show off for lillian. i've of course been learning bird speak, and one type of bird i can actually carry on a bit of a conversation with are ratites. this is the family of modern birds most famous large flightless birds are a part of (like ostriches, moas, and kiwis). i think due to their being a more primitive set of birds their language hasn't evolved or changed as much in 65 million years from my coelurosaurian language as other birds' have.

lucky for me, my conversation with the ostrich camelus in invercargill wasn't a fluke! the emus here could understand me, and a couple were in a chatty mood.

i was thrilled. seems i have a new language to put under my belt (i already speak 6)!!!

now of course as i was on a date i didn't want to waste too much time chatting to anyone (or is that anything?) other than lillian. so i didn't get into any topics as... well interesting i guess would be the word for it... as with camelus the ostrich (rather than retell that whole confusing tale just click here for the back link). just some simple greetings and how do you does.

_

lillian though not understanding most of it, was indeed a little surprised i had such a talent. i think the only thing about lillian that bothers me at moment is how much she looks down on me.

next up was the classic australian animal. the kangaroo...

i was really happy i snapped this action shot!

there were a lot of kangaroos, and i can't complain now about not seeing any in australia. though it would have been cool to see some in the wild, but maybe later...

i can't get over how solid an animal the hairy nose wombat is. the thing is like a walking brickwall!

next up was one of my favourite aussie critters. the monitor lizard... well okay they have lots of different types of them down here (and monitors do live in lots of other places throughout the world).

monitor lizards are just cool. their among the most intelligent of lizards and are very well adapted predators. that's not even taking into account their being direct ancestors of mosasaurs or snakes!

of course it wouldn't be an aussie animal stop without a mandatory koala bear shot. have to say despite the cuteness, these guys seriously stink... man it was a few meters up the tree and i could still smell him!

next up was a really cool enclosure. a giant bird cage! (sorta like the one in jurassic park 3... only not lame or unrealistic)

so apart from lillian barely fitting inside this was an ubber neat experience. there was a ton of space just filled with bird that you could walk around.

among these were several types of herons.

i got real close to this rosella.

there were lots of parrot looking fellows around too.

again lots of parrot looking (or possibly actual parrots... i shoulda read the signs more carefully!) this time hanging out with a galah.

this was one of my favs. some random lizard that for some reason had been in one of the water ponds, and was now climbing out as of this photo. he wasn't supposed to be in the enclosure as i couldn't find him on any of the signs (which i concentrated so much on i forgot some of the birds!)... so i'll call him spider lizard, and i'll tell you he can do whatever a spider lizard does.

from here we entered the "normal" part of the zoo. that is to say the rest of the animals came from elsewhere in the world.

though this tank of water was supposed to have an otter in it, none showed up while i was here. boo!

at the same time with all the fish it felt like an aquarium, and i do love those.

they were big fish too!

now how much more zoo can you get than this photo? really?!?

i can't believe i saw zoboomafoo... or his cousin. not sure which.

this little shrew like guy wigged me out. not only wouldn't he sit still (hence the blurriness of the photo), but he reminded me of the mammals my ancestors would have had to put up with 65 million years ago...

next we wandered into the rather done up and flash elephant section. it was HUGE considering how few elephants they had (though it is good really. the elephants had tons of space to live in compared to most other zoos i've seen).

here one is. among the largest of current living land animals. their alright (okay actually i think elephants are cool), but their kinda average for to us mesozoic alumni. lillian herself is about the same weight as one.

they had a whole pond full of pelicans. which is awesome cause i love pelicans!

their such graceful yet silly looking birds. that and their big. way bigger than they should be. yet there they are!

on the other end of the ackward yet graceful size scale was a family of blue penguins. their such cute little things! and man can they move in the water...

onward and upward through the zoo we crusied. past this giant pond, which the sign said should be full of turtles. i thought the sign was lying as there were no turtles at all till...

we came almost full circle around the pond, and there were ALL the turtles!!!

i made a stop off to check the king of the modern jungle, mr. lion. he should be glad he is living these days. i have to say my ancestors being the king of their day woulda made short work of this puddy cat...

of course lillian loved the meerkats. which are cute as...

or in the case of this reflection cute as squared!

for some reason the platypus house was not in the australian animal section of the zoo... but it was cool. though as platypuses are night time critters they keep their enclosure completely dark, and none of my photos turned out. so you'll just have to enjoy this statue outside the house instead.

the giant tortises outside the reptile house were awesome. i've never seen one except on TV!

by the time of the reptile house we'd been at the zoo a couple hours, and we were both kinda zooed out. so as we wandered through i took pics of the reptiles but forgot to really check the signs.

so i'll have a game of name that reptile. if you can tell me the name of any of these guys i'll edit the post and give you credit for IDing the critter!

unknown lizard

definately an iguana of the sort they used to have play us dinosaurs in those awful 60's movies.

so i thought i'd grab a shot with me and some potential movie stars... even if their movies were among the worst dinosaur movies ever!

a really cool, but now nameless snake.

so in the end my second date was salvaged. lillian had a good time, and her mind was taken off her current troubles for the afternoon. sadly after the reptile house her worries began creeping back, and she got very sad/grumpy/angry. if there is one thing you don't want to be near when it is upset like this its a female tyrannosaurid (the bigger and scarier of the tyrannosaurid genders).

sadly my time of make beliefing i was going to successful court lillian here in australia was over...

the reality was if i was going to be truely there for lillian like a mate should be, than i was going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice and let her go... hows the saying go if you love something let it go and it'll return if it loves you... which i don't get. unless that thing is a boomrang (good thing i'm in australia?) it'll just fall to the ground won't it? unless it is a bouncy ball too i guess... lillian being the in shape goddess that she is, doesn't have an ounce of fat on her...

i was going to have to make the most costly phone call of my life (well at least costly for me... lillian would hopefully gain everything from it, and that was the point)

to be continued with: the call...