Since it’s been a few days since
my last blog entry this will be the first of three. We have been driving around exploring so much
that by the time we get back to our home base and pictures are edited it’s too
late to head over to Starbucks to post.
Today we are staying close to home and spending some time in the pool so
it’s the perfect day to get caught up.
We left San
Diego on Sunday to head back to our home base at Yuma
but first we needed to stop at the San
Diego Zoo Safari Park
Entrance sign
One view of the park
We had about 3 hours to kill
before the safari so we took a stroll to see the gorilla family. There are many babies at the Safari Park and
there was one gorilla baby who we learnt later was born via caesarean section.
She was the first mother to give birth this way and the safari park actually
called an expert in delivering human babies to perform the operation. Mom is very protective of her young child and
was always putting her on her back. As
we walked through the exhibit we noticed the huge silver back lying in a cave
watching everyone’s move from the corner of his eyes.
Momma and baby
Such soulful eyes
You could say he was HUGE!
From there we headed over to see
the lemurs and were excited to see that you can actually go into their habitat
without any cage or walls to separate you and them. I guess they are so used to people entering
their ‘home’ because everyone went about doing their business without even
acknowledging us.
Loved how this guys held it's tail
Watching the zoo keeper
We noticed that there was a bird
show starting soon so we entered into the area and took a seat. It was a short show but the trainers &
birds were very interactive with the crowd. Our highlight was when this hawk
flew just above your heads, so close you could actually feel the wind from his
wings. Unfortunately I didn’t get many
good pictures because you didn’t know where the birds which direction the birds
were. One of the most interesting birds
to me was the secretary bird, I have seen these on TV shows but never in
person.
The secretary bird
Since our safari was going to be
2 hours long we decided to stop and have a bite to eat which the tables and
chairs were surrounded by a pond with housed birds. Just before we left for our holidays Craig and
I were watching this program that was about these prehistoric looking birds
called shoebill and as we sat down to eat we noticed that there were two of these
close to us. There were also pelicans,
egrets and night herons.
Flamigos
Egret
Shoebill
Shoebill
Pelican
Black-crowned night heron
The safari first took us through Africa and the first animals that we saw were the white
rhinos. I felt sorry for the male of the
group as he kept on getting pushed to the side from the females. I guess they weren’t interested in him yet.
Our next highlight in Africa was the giraffes, especially one teenager named
Bagedi. He was a character and the best
thing is that we got to feed him. He was
a bit pushy at times but we were teaching him to be patient and to feed him up
high. It was so hard not to pet him but
we were told we couldn’t as he would likely head butt you and well frankly that
would hurt. Our caravan was about 7 feet
tall and he rose well above us, remember he was only a teenager.
His tongue was 15 inches long
'Whatcha got there Craig?"
Beautiful eyes
Getting pushy
So cute!
The baby of the bunch
We saw many horned animals also
and again babies were plenty on the Africa
plains. From Africa our caravan took us
to Asia .
In Asia the animals had antlers and not horns – unlike Africa . Our highlight in Asia
was meeting Millie, an Asian rhino, who was also just a teenager. As soon as she saw the caravan she strolled
up to us and our tour guide brought out a bucket full of apples. We each took turns feeding as we did with
Bagedi. Speaking of Bagedi, after our tour of Asia we had to head back to Africa to exit and Bagedi met us again looking for some
grass. We couldn’t get enough of him as
he had so much personality and was so adorable but we had to say our good-byes
to him and the rest of the animals as our tour was over and the park was going
to close in about ½ an hour.
Water buffalo
MILLIE!
Craig trying to pet Millie
We had time to see one more
animal and Craig wanted to see the tigers plus it was the closest exhibit to
us. The enclosure was set up so that you
could see some of the tigers without having a cage separating you and them. We saw 5 tigers in total and some were quite
close, they were all lying around as the temperatures have been warm. Sorry Sandy
This guy was roaring quite a bit
I'm sleepy
Majestic
We got back to Yuma
Talk soon!
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