Summer Travels: San Diego Zoo

 Monday morning, we headed to the San Diego Zoo after breakfast. With U being gone, I figured we would put everything in one backpack. However, Megan offered to carry the other backpack. Partway through the day, she said, "Why does wearing a backpack make you want to walk more and be happy?" Love that girl!

Matthew decided he wanted to give backpack wearing a try as well and so I spent the last part of the day without a backpack.

Matthew waiting for the park to open. At opening time, they had a bunch of macaws that they released. It was fun to watch them go flying by.

Megan, Matthew and Me on the first guided tour bus of the day. We saw a mom leopard with 2 cubs and a mom bear with 2 cubs. The lioness was being feisty! We learned that if a lion and jaguar went up against each other, the jaguar would likely win.

Polar bear exploring its habitat. We learned that polar bears can smell seal 20 miles away so the polar bears at the zoo smell the seals at Sea World. We saw one of the polar bears slowly following a crane in the enclosure.

See the momma leopard with her two cubs?

Tasmanian devil! Yes, it was sleeping but we normally don't see them at all so it was exciting.

Megan and Matthew taking pictures of the koalas. They then sent a lot to people, especially Aunt Cheryl-Lynn who loves koalas. (They really took a lot of pictures--Megan alone had 140!)

We saw a lot of movement in the koala area. The keepers were around and it was overcast and a bit cooler.

Lots of koalas in this tree.

So cute!

Momma with big joey on her back climbing down the tree.

Momma and joey getting checked by the keepers.

Hmmmmm. I wonder what is over there.

More exploring.

Momma with joey running across the ground.

Megan and Matthew with a flamboyance of flamingos.

We watched the giraffes go into this half of their enclosure once the keepers finished getting it ready. To keep things interesting, the keepers put food in new places each day.

Momma hippo and her baby. Who seems quite large...

Geladas resting.

We enjoyed watching the penguins swim back and forth while we ate lunch.

We learned all about aardvarks and got to see this one eat lots of termites.

Matthew taking a rest on a silverback gorilla.

Megan watches while Matthew rests.

Matthew, Me and Megan waiting for the wildlife show.

Einstein, a female Eurasian owl. Her eyes are shaped like incandescent lightbulbs. The part we see is like the end that screws in with the bulb being inside her head.

Wolf pack. They rolled around on the ice. We learned that wolves (and dogs) roll around in dung to mask their scent as a predator.

It's fun to watch the sloth.

Axolotl

Matthew in his den.

Bounce Back to the Outback. Megan and Matthew enjoyed watching these acrobats as they told a story about how kangaroos and koalas are related.

Friendly giraffe.

We really enjoyed listening to the Chameleon band. They played a lot of pop songs and Broadway tunes.

We walked by the bears where we saw these two cubs playing while their momma watched.

We enjoyed spending some time in the Africa Rocks Aviary. We watched as a keeper threw worms and the bee eaters caught them mid air. They would often hit the worm on something hard before eating it like they would do with a bee to remove the stinger.

Watching a bird build its nest.

We watched the African acrobats.

We took the Skyfari a few times. Here's a nice view of the bridge by Balboa Park.

We enjoyed watching the Call of the Night show.

The Jambo Dunia was fun to see. There were lots of performers and acrobats as well as some large animals.

The Chameleon band and the elephant

Lion

African acrobats

Definitely an enjoyable day at the zoo. We ended up being there from open to close, which was 12 hours!