Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada
Visited the museum and then over to a restaurant to eat, drink and be merry with a dozen or so of the Ottawa Flickr community. Had to feed the Dinosaur exhibit first though :-).
Live fish swimming in one of the aquariums at the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Ontario. Taken through glass – no surprise there, eh! In Canada, the Northern Pike is a predatory species highly sought after by sport anglers because they put up a pretty good fight on the end of a fishing line. They are good to eat if you don’t mind the bones which can be filetted out by folks skillful enough to do so. They are prolific spawners and eat their own offspring so young members of the clan need heavy vegetation in the spawning area in order for the young to escape from their parents and from the many other predators that think they are tasty. Because of their predatory nature (eat almost anything that moves), they can wreck havoc on other native species such as trout and salmon so fisheries personnel in some areas of the country see them as a serious pest. In other parts of the world such as Britain, a catch and release philosophy applies to the pike in many of that island’s waterways because of its value to the lucrative sports fishery there. The colouration of the pike is variable,with the reintroduced fish inhabiting spent coal seams in southeastern Saskatchewan being almost completely black.
After wandering around the new displays at the Museum, marveling at the bright colours of the poisonous frogs, and feeding the dinosaurs, we headed for the restaurant on Elgin Street for a bit to eat and a discussion of camera equipment and everyone’s wish list.
