Well Cared For and well fed these dolphins at the Mississippi Aquarium. They get lots of attention from the trainers and lots of activities to keep them in great shape.
People are always excited to see dolphins. I am thinking because they look like they are smiling all the time and having fun in the water.
Here the only photo I took from inside the aquarium. Sometimes one has to put the camera down and just enjoy what it is front of us. Plus shooting through thick glass doesn’t make the best photos. 🙂
Dolphins in the Wild – I see dolphins a lot when I am on the gulf coast. But, never jumping out of the water when I am just walking on the beach. I mostly see their fin and part of the body is all.
Below is a quick video I took of a couple of dolphins rounding up fish next to the beach as a Blue Heron paced back and forth watching them, as if it was trying to tell the dolphins to move the fish just a little closer so he could have one also.
Mississippi Aquarium – Last week I ended with a post telling you about some very colorful birds coming up next. First I must show you where I saw these birds, because most of them are from other country’s.
I am talking about a fairly new Aquarium in Gulfport Mississippi, right next to the coast. A fellow camper told us about this place so we headed on over. It is a wonderful drive along the coast line to get to this aquarium.
Mississippi Aquarium is a nonprofit public aquarium located in Gulfport, Mississippi; it opened August 29, 2020. The 5.8-acre, complex incorporates both indoor and outdoor habitats with more than 200 species of animals and 50 species of native plants.
First the star of the aquarium is the dolphins for sure. They have lots of fish inside and these two beautiful guys outside.
Panorama Photos – sometimes I forget I have the panorama setting on my phone and cameras. They make for very interesting photos. The first photo was taken with that setting at sunset on the Gulf Coast.
I always want to try new things with photography. So much out there to see in so many different ways when it comes to the artist perspective.
One More New Bird – I wasn’t sure what this bird was. A duck or something else. It took awhile to find it in my bird book.
But it is a Clapper Rail, it looks half duck and half something else. Even when I looked up information on this bird, this is what it says.
This bird is a member of the rail family, Rallidae. The taxonomy for this species is confusing and still being determined. It is a large brown rail that is resident in wetlands along the Atlantic coasts of the eastern United States, eastern Mexico and some Caribbean islands.
Group Art Project – at a campground we stayed at this winter, one of the local artist ask me if I would help her with a project she wanted to do. Which would involve having a dozen people help with the project. I said sure, sounds like fun.
So, step one. She drew on a piece of paper her idea of a painting she wanted to do. The photo below shows her rough draft of a bridge in the background, some of the local birds, water, sand, sea grass. She asked me if I could put all these items onto a photos that can be printed.
I made the print below. It is just what she was thinking about. I used photos that I had taken and made a composite of all the images into one.
I then applied grid lines to the image and printed a 20×30 copy. She cut the image into the 6×6 squares I made and had the volunteers pick a square, they in turn painted that square onto a 6×6 piece of canvas.
They wanted me to paint one, and I am not a painter at all. So I chose the top left square that only had some clouds in it.
The top left square in this picture below is my attempt to paint the piece I chose. This was actually a very fun project. The idea is that the final art piece will look more like a mosaic piece of art. The teacher of the project said she did not want the painted pieces to be perfect. It was just for fun.
Below is the final piece of art. 24 different people painted the squares. This project is now hanging in the club house at the campground. I am glad I was able to make the template for the project to bring this idea to life.