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Antelope park rambles loose-jointedly from the old federal treasury
columns at 24th and O south to Sheridan boulevard. It can be and is many
things to many people. Here families spread their fried chicken for a
blue canopied feast, here the children point their toes to the sky as
they pump up swings, here the band begins to play—evening and Sunday
concerts. Here the young people dance the evening hours away, the summer
Indians brandish their tennis rackets, the flower lovers stroll and gaze
at elaborately laid out beds of flowers.
Or, calling all ages, there is the zoological building on south 27th,
where the monkeys chatter and swing, the tigers shake their bars and
little creatures of all kinds peer out from their cages. Central in the
zoo is the scene above. Photographed thru the screen which surrounds it,
it has the dreamlike quality of a Chinese painting. Some of the birds
took to cover with the appearance of a camera. The scarlet ibis clings
morosely to a branch and an African crane, with seedy headgear, is in
picturesque tete-a-tete with another exotic bird in the foreground. The
stork, to the left, legging its way as usual on the heights, is
obliterated except for a beak and bit of curved wing.
The peace of this scene, with its pool, its rocks and flashes of bright
color, is seldom disturbed. When the keeper circles the ledge
symmetrically with dishes of bananas and grain the birds, big and small,
float noiselessly down and begin pecking at their food in genteel
manner.