Freshwater

A reminder to members of City Daily Photo: the theme day for February 1st is Smiles. I will be dipping into my archives for some of it, but with some fresh material too. 

The path in the Water Gallery leads into an area that focuses on freshwater environments. It includes a large aquarium with several species of freshwater fish.

Panels look at the concept of watersheds, including a breakdown of where Canadian waters actually go. One of those watersheds will come as a surprise to many of you.

A display case nearby includes several birds and other life around freshwater shores. We'll see more of this tomorrow.

Ethereal

Panels continue to explore adaptations of life in the oceans. 

Here we have another look at the blue whale.

Display cases beside it include molluscs, the invertebrates that have an enormous variety and make up a substantial amount of sealife.

Models of larger molluscs are included here.

I paused to take a couple of shots of a panel on life in extreme depths.

Then I took another shot of the whale.

These last two shots are taken close by. An aquarium houses several moon jellies, a strangely graceful and otherworldly animal that can be a challenge to photograph.

Water

 Here we have another look at the blue whale skeleton that forms the heart of the Water Gallery.

More display panels are found.

This is a replica of an ungainly looking critter of the sea.

More panels examine different aspects of life in water.

For today I leave off with three models. Each has a person alongside it for scale, demonstrating the sheer size of these animals of the oceans.

Water

For today I start with stained glass windows, within the Queens Lantern. This new addition to the museum honours both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.

Historic displays of the building are here too. This one refers to the stories of the building being haunted.

This view looks into the central atrium from the Lantern.

And two more views of Gaia.

The next gallery is the Water Gallery. It is dominated by the skeleton of an immature blue whale.

Panels examine the importance of water on Earth, its presence elsewhere in the universe, and its qualities.

An artifact here includes a quartz crystal still containing water. Very old water.

Quake

Picking up where we left off yesterday, panels here go into detail about the process of earthquakes and the differences in magnitude. 

Emerging from the Earth Gallery, I paused to photograph up past Gaia.

And then a look out into the Queens Lantern and the Moon.