First visit in a while! A lot was new for me, but has been reported here recently.
* The butterfly house is now heavily qued, with barriers to make a curving line filling up the middle of the Interpretive Gallery. The line to get in today was huge, with a 30 minute wait. Only about 15 people are allowed in at a time, give or take for groups. People get kicked out for staying longer than 10 minutes. Signage is now particularly heavy on the "please don't touch the butterflies" thing. Cannot bear to imagine whatever incident caused things to have to be so policed.
* If you want to skip the screaming child wait time hell and just visit the aviary, it seems the Covid entrance (door to the side of the gallery near the bird height comparison thing on the wall) is now permanent, with a sign over it.
* Max the macaw doesn't seem to be doing well
Instead of her usual goofy self, she laid down on her perch barely moving all day. Sign did say the vets were looking into this.
* Saw a peculiar bird in the aviary that might have been one of the tanager hybrids, but I'm not sure. It had the shape of a tanager or finch, but was black with red wings. Even with binoculars, I have no clue what I was looking at.
* The spiny headed tree frogs are already on exhibit, though I didn't see them.
* There is finally trumpeter swan signage in the wetlands.
* Similar to the butterflies, there is now a TON of signage within the reptile house about not tapping the glass, with much of it specific about how it stresses out particular species (eg rattlesnakes hunt by detecting vibration and falsely believe it's feeding time, aquatic turtles hear it louder than you because of how sound travels underwater). Enragingly, this STILL did not stop a lot of parents today from letting their kids slam into the glass, which was visibly stressing out the Chinese alligators just as their sign said (one was right by the glass and ran away to no longer be visible, I was gonna get a picture too...)
* I believe that the sandhill cranes and cinereous vultures are on rotation.
* Construction has expanded and you now have to take a specific route to see the North American animals. In what really caught me off guard, this means that you will see the wolverines before the bison (on a tangential note, this is the first time I've ever seen both of the wolverines running around). This reduces wolverine visibility to a degree as you can only see one side of the exhibit and cannot walk around.
* The best view of the construction is on the train from Africa to the front of the zoo. You will see nearly all of it clearly. Not much has happened (the ground has been successfully leveled to the same elevation as the rest of the zoo and there is a piece of mock rock), but I'm giving the heads up if people want to track progress.
* There is now black crowned night heron signage at various parts of the zoo, as in the wild ones. Discussing the species, that they are frequent on the zoo property despite being rare in the rest of Michigan, and warning that guests should avoid angry mamas with nests as they may attack.
