Visit to the Birch Aquarium in San Diego

I was taken by surprise...a great white lurking in the waters...and then I realized he was made out of cardboard. A dangerous beast but I was never afraid.

I went to the Birch Aquarium at Scripps in San Diego last week and though it's not a very large facility I was pleasantly surprised by their exhibits. The first one I entered was the "Hall of Fishes". It contains displays for several different species of sea creatures from the California coast, Mexico and the Caribbean including a very impressive 70,000-gallon kelp forest tank. After that I went to see the Tide Pools which were not incredibly exciting but had a great ocean view. There were a couple of other interesting exhibits but I thought the Art of Deception was outstanding. It's geared primarily to teach kids about the different techniques sea animals use to protect themselves from predators by blending in with their surroundings. It might be made for kids but there is enough interesting material to keep a curious adult occupied for a while. Last but not least I got to see different types of sharks. Some of these sharks were small, some not so small but it was really hard to take a picture of them because they were constantly moving. I finally got a great picture of the only one that would stay still (see picture above).

-The Road Master