This morning was a bit of a rushed period of time at the MDPhotoquarters. So luckily I have had this one saved for a while. If you’ve ever seen the ad campaign for 1877bayspan you’ll probably get the joke in this title. Otherwise, it’s just another picture from the Salisbury zoo.
This picture and yesterday’s picture show what is left of the Wye Oak. Located in Talbot county, just a few miles off of Rt. 50, the Wye Oak was at one time a significant attraction. Formerly the largest White Oak tree in the United states, it was struck by lightning in 2002. It was 460 years old at the time if the lightning strike.
Just to put this tree’s age in scale, today’s picture, like all of the pictures on this site is 700 pixels wide. That isn’t even close to capable of the resolving power to show you all of the tree’s rings.
The tree was able to achieve 460 years of life thanks to care of the many owners and the state, which eventually took ownership of the tree and built a park around it. It was indeed sad for many when the tree was destroyed.
After the lightning strike this section of tree was moved 20 yards west of the tree’s original site and placed in a gazebo for visitors to see. Part of the tree also went to making a new desk for the governor.
To read more about the tree you can go to the state’s site for the tree here.
Time to move onto a new subject. Today is just a teaser. Any guesses where this came from?
The trash piles were in the middle of the Rock Creek Trail. Thanks to a park clean up effort, any number of odd and unusual things were cleaned out of the creek. The tires are to be expected, but who put a toilet, a muffler, a 50 gallon oil drum, and a baby carriage in the river? There was also a washing machine and any number of small and unusual one off items that I didn’t picture here.
Ok, this has nothing to do with the zoo, this is a fish that my mother knitted. I figured she would get a kick out of seeing it here and maybe I could get a meal out of it. I actually took this picture with the intent of posting it on april fools day, but that passed and I had forgotten about the picture. So here it is today.
Next Monday we will slowly move out of the animal kingdom on MDP.
I had never heard of a Patagonian Cavy before going to the zoo.
That’s the cool thing about the Salisbury zoo, it may not have a panda, but it has a wide range of animals that you just don’t normally see; like a Bison or a Rhea, or a Patagonian Cavy. What’s a Patagonian Cavy? Well it’s a a rabiit-like animal from South America. If that sentence isn’t enough for you, here’s a wikipedia article.
We’ll just declare this to be zoo week here at mdp. Since I have such an abundance of these pics, I might as well use them. If you are ever in Salisbury you too can stop by and see some of these guys.
Today we have Prarie dogs.
The Salisbury Zoo is one of the few free zoos remaining in the country. At least that’s what the signs outside of the park tell you. According to its website it was started in 1954, not as a zoo, but as a display of a few animals in a city park. Since then it has grown to a full fledged zoo.
You can come and go as you please every day but Thanksgiving and Christmas. The staffers were very friendly and plentiful… In fact you would really expect this kind of place to have to be funded by admissions charges.
