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Pictures Washington Park Zoo, Michigan City, IN

taxidermynerd

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(@finchly )

Yesterday, as a belated birthday thing we went to the zoo. This particular zoo is my favorite, the vast majority of their animals are rescues in some form or another.

Over 100 of their budgies came from a hoarder's home, so they're in really rough shape but they're in a HUGE outdoor aviary, they have an indoor area that's like a dream, they have tons of plants, that beautiful Lake Michigan air, and it makes me so happy to see. Usually, you can walk through and feed them and sometimes they'll come perch on you, but it was closed yesterday.

All of their raptors are rescues that can't be released into the wild. One of the iguanas was found running around Indianapolis. The fallow deer just got a new big environment, and the zebras will be getting an expansion into the old fallow deer yard. Here's an article from my local newspaper... At 90, Washington Park Zoo undergoing facelift, resurrection | LaPorte County News | nwitimes.com

So anywho, here's some pictures. The rest are in the album on my facebook thingy. (Link here)




The fallow deer... Such cuties!




One of the bald eagles had a floofie on his cere! Possibly the most patriotic floofie?





We saw this guy in the upper aviary, he was strutting around trying to find a lady friend, the ibises (?) were not impressed.





Then before we went into the rotary castle (where these next pictures are from) we passed by the crows and vultures... There's one crow in particular that loves to giggle like a small creepy child, I finally got him on video!



This guy (American Kestrel) was holding this mouse and bobbing his head, I guess he wanted to feed his lady friend. But she didn't want any of it!









And the budgie aviary! They also have some areas dived up where in warmer weather they have cockatoos and in a different area, kookaburras. The pictures really don't do it justice, it's so nice in there.



A lot of these guys looked pretty rough, but judging the situation they came from, I would assume they didn't get any vet care (remember, hoarder's house). So hopefully these babies are getting treatment!





 

finchly

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Hey taxi,

Wow!!! Great photos! Did you take those? I can never get great closeups like that.

The animals are beautiful. That one budgie with the booboo on his head awww he is my favorite color. We have some of your zoo animals in the wild here, ibis, iguanas, kestrel, and eagles. No budgies altho there are a lot of quakers — people are catching them and selling as “wild caught” lol.

Thanks for sharing. It’s like we all get to go to the zoo together. :)
 

TikiMyn

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Amazing pictures! The budgie area is wonderful!:heart: I love the bald eagle, the fennex fox and the American Kestrals most of all:xflove:
 

taxidermynerd

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Wow!!! Great photos! Did you take those? I can never get great closeups like that.
Yep! Thanks! I put it up to zoom mostly ;)
The animals are beautiful. That one budgie with the booboo on his head awww he is my favorite color. We have some of your zoo animals in the wild here, ibis, iguanas, kestrel, and eagles. No budgies altho there are a lot of quakers — people are catching them and selling as “wild caught” lol.
That's really neat! Up at Starved Rock (a state park, about an hour north of me) they supposedly get lots of bald eagles, but I've never seen one in the wild. Up here though, you get hawks and stuff sometimes, squirrels, and sometimes a rabbit or raccoon.
Amazing pictures!
Thanks!:)
 

EllaMay

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It's my fav zoo to visit, I grew up 20 mins from Michigan City. I always go every year, thank you for the wonderful pics!
 

taxidermynerd

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It's my fav zoo to visit, I grew up 20 mins from Michigan City. I always go every year, thank you for the wonderful pics!
That's really cool! I think it's my favorite too, you can get so close to the animals :)

The llamas they have recognize our faces, and every time we go they come over to say hi! The female doesn't like me (she tried to spit at me once!) but the male is a big sweetie. And the goats, they're nice too.

And I love all the birds... The budgies, the conures, in warmer weather they bring out the cockatoos and macaws, the vultures and crows, all the peacocks, the eagles, the chickens, the little sparrows that have taken up residence in the barn... I guess I really am a bird person!:lol:
 

iamwhoiam

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Thanks for sharing your nice photos. Looks like you had a lot of fun.
 

Serin

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I went here often as a child around 2001 - 2005, it was pretty small and very old-fashioned for most of that time, all the bears, lions and tigers had small cages and looked rather sullen. The last time I visited was a little over ten years ago and they had just started renovating the zoo and improving the animals' living conditions. They didn't have the budgie aviary at that time.It's wonderful to see they are working to improve the facility and better the living conditions for the animals.
 
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