My zoo membership was recently renewed so a trip to Brookfield was in order. We included a visit to the underwater viewing gallery for the dolphins. This can be a bit hit and miss depending on where the dolphins are and how much they want to show themselves. This time turned out to be a bit different.
One of the dolphins seemed a lot less interested in swimming around and far more fascinated by us. It was up at the end of the gallery hanging out by the window. I thought moving up would be the trigger for it moving off but went anyway. I was wrong. Instead, I ended up having a pretty amazing interaction with the dolphin. It seemed to enjoy having its picture taken and kept coming up to the window, resting its blowhole against the glass, blowing some bubbles and making lots of clicking sounds.
No point in overestimating these things but I really felt like it was talking to me. I was captivated and it seemed to have no boredom for this so we spent a lot of time like this. It was very cool. The pictures may not be the most technically accurate. Shooting through thick glass into water is problematic and the focus on the eye is not always there but, frankly, I don’t care. This dolphin was looking straight at me for ages and these images remind me of just how cool that was.