Montreal: part two

Our next trip into the city was school oriented. Morgan’s final science unit is all about Invertebrates (mainly bugs), and Montreal is home to the largest insect museum in North America, the Insectarium. They have lots of live specimens (scorpions, spiders, millipedes, walking sticks & other creepy crawlies) and plenty of informative displays. 

The ant colony was really neat to watch as the ants crossed a bridge to cut leaves and then came back across to the colony with the leaf bits. I always thought leaf-cutter ants ate the leaves, but they actually mulch it all up to give to a fungus they cultivate and eat. Cool. And weird. I tried to get a pic, but they all came out blurry :( 

When we tired of the bugs, we went outside to the Botanical Gardens. (Tickets to the Insectarium include access to the Botanical Garden grounds.) Forget the bugs – this was my happy place! The gardens are expansive and we only saw a portion. Even this early in the season they were absolutely beautiful. The grounds are split up into many different garden types, each with its own personality and feel. We walked through the Chinese Garden, the Japanese Garden (where we saw tadpoles & a snail), the First Nations Garden (felt just like a forest), 

 the Flowery Brook & Lilac Garden (We saw a mother duck and her 11 ducklings

and communed with a turtle,

all while breathing in the delicious scent of lilacs),











and the Alpine Garden (Now this is an alpine garden! I had a small one at my house, but there’s nothing like a grand scale to really bring some verisimilitude to the project. It was so realistic, foxes were even playing along the path.). The end of the day came too soon, and we said goodbye to the pretty flowers (and bugs).