NHM: Darwin Centre Courtyard

Better in large ("L").

I had a jolly day, but felt pretty uninspired photographically... Why does that happen? It was a beautiful day and I certainly enjoyed wandering about in the sunshine.
I visited the Wildlife Garden after lunch which was a nice escape: it feels so removed from the busy museum and the bustle of Central London (in spite of being situated on the corner between the Cromwell Road and Queens Gate...).
There are new moorhenlings on one of the ponds there: the previous brood are now fully grown juveniles and are helping to feed their new, young siblings which is touching...

I took this photo from the edge of the Darwin Centre courtyard: these curved steps are always lined with people having lunch when the weather is nice, although this was much quieter than in the photos I took 20 minutes earlier (before I ambled around the Wildlife Garden...). The courtyard is also home to the Indian Ocean Tsunami Memorial which is a large granite sculpture (/block): a memorial is a good idea, but I must admit that I find it rather dark... It is a large, heavy object with an overhang, which makes it feel rather like it could accidentally crush someone who got too close. It is obviously designed not to (and it only seems that way from one angle), but the parallel to the natural disaster is there...
On the left, the panes make up the glass sarcophagus casing around the cocoon which is most clearly visible at the top and bottom of the glass wall.

My usual commute home didn't quite work as anticipated, but that meant that I got an unplanned Goosle visit in! Yay; that was great. They were swimming about in convoy (Mrs. - Gosling - Gosling - Mr.) which is always sweet.