City Park, New Orleans - must visit!

In addition to doing a swamp tour, City Park in New Orleans is definitely a place I recommend visitors to check out, and riding the streetcars to City Park is definitely worth a try - for just $1.25 per trip!  After attending to a couple of presentations on Monday morning and making sure there weren't presentations in the afternoon that I was going to miss, I headed out to the City Park right afterwards.  Once again, this blogger also visited the City Park and she had a slightly different (positive) experience than mine.

City Park gate.

Baby animals at Minoru Park

My mother and I went to Minoru Lake Park after dropping my father off at work.  Walking towards the park, we saw many Japanese student-visitors taking photos of a Grey squirrel.  I guess I would act the same if I am in a new country seeing unfamiliar animals, although doesn't Japan have squirrels?

Lotus pads in Minoru Park.

Photos of the day & Working decisions

For the entire day, I stayed inside the office trying to research the suitable scientific journals to submit my just-started research paper to and compiling data. I came to learn all the nitty-gritties when it comes to choosing the journal(s) that you want to submit your paper(s) to, such as the impact factor (IF) of the journal, the amount of time it takes for the journal to reply your submission, the scholars in the editorial board, and so forth. I wish they taught us all this stuff in our undergraduate courses, because this seemed pretty important to me at the moment.

Anyways, I narrowed my choices to:
- The Auk
- Ibis
- Condor
- The Wilson Journal of Ornithology
- Journal of Field Ornithology
- and a few more others

And my supervisor will help me looking into the other important factors that will determine the journal(s) to hand our papers in and the writing style and format of my just-started paper.

Anyways, knowing beforehand that I will be working indoors all day today, I actually came to work a bit early today to photograph the views of the botanical garden.

Water Lily still in blossom

Busy bee and lovely lotus

Beautiful flowers

Common Moorhen

Common Moorhen giving me the stare
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Photographic Day

On to work today, I took a couple photos of these beautiful Water Lillies flowers in blossom. Simply beautiful.

While out for lunch, a Black-crowned Night Heron flew to the pond just a few feet from us. One of the my better Night Heron shots.

We were planning on netting and banding the barbets this week or the next. However, one of the security guards at the garden found one fledgeling injuried on the ground today. We guess it was trying to learn how to fly (from its almost 20-m home!) and fell. We went to the tree where the bird was picked up and tried to see if the patient has brothers or sisters trying to take flight today. Interestingly, we did not see any younglings poking their curious heads out of the nest. Instead, we saw a loving adult pair perhaps on their way to make their second brood. Have they forgot all about their child already?

One interesting sight to see at the garden was during the nighttimes when moths would flock all over the path lights. Right underneath each light are several Black-spectacled Toad (Bufo melanostictus) trying to catch its meal. Quite a sight!

Quite a handsome toad, no?
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