Shedd Aquarium

I just heard on the news that there is now snow on the ground in 49 states. We're all sick of it, as has been well documented in many blogs. So - what do you do when you want to fish, but winter won't let you? You go to LOOK AT fish! So we went to John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago on Thursday.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Shedd, it is a very large Aquarium located right along Lake Michigan, on Museum Campus in Chicago. Museum Campus consists of Shedd, the Field Museum of Natural History, and Adler Planetarium. Right next door is Soldier Field.

We really enjoy going to the Shedd Aquarium, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Brookfield Zoo when we get a chance. We ended up picking the nicest day in the last couple of weeks and I hope some of the pictures convey that. I took my new camera along to try to figure it out. So far, I like it. The issues I had were inherent to taking any pictures at the Shedd. You are asked to not use flash, so you are reliant on low light, have to shoot the pictures through glass and water, and deal with slow shutter speeds. Not a winning combination. But I tried!

A lot of the fish are reef fish whose name I didn't get, but they are intriguing. The Aquarium was not full on Thursday, and we could stay at the tanks as long as we wanted without getting jostled and pushed along. You can really observe the fishes habits this way.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.




Exterior of Shedd Aquarium, with the Chicago skyline behind.




Entrance to Shedd Aquarium




A school of little catfish




Jellyfish under a blue light




Stonefish




A neat little fish




Japanese spider crab




I think these are called Garden Eels




Seahorses




Green Iguana - much nicer photo quality when you don't have to shoot through glass




Even the light fixtures are aquatic themed!