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!

Summer Travels: San Diego Zoo Safari Park

 We headed to the Safari Park. We immediately went straight back to the Safari Tram. On our way, we spotted a lizard on a rope in the gibbons enclosure.

Megan, Me, U and Matthew. We were on the first tram of the day.

We learned a lot on the tram. For example, this antelope has what is called a threat mask. It makes other animals think it is bigger than it is and also think that it is a predator. Deer and antelope may look like they aren't paying attention to us but they are very aware and they keep a flight distance between themselves and predators.  If they raise their tails, it means they have seen you.

A group of giraffes is called a tower. A group of zebras is called a dazzle.

This moth came along for the ride.

We wandered through the African Outpost where we saw lots of birds diving under water to eat. We continued to the African Woods where we saw the okapi, a relative of the giraffe.

U, Me, Matthew and Megan with a southern white rhino. The San Diego Zoo is working to breed northern white rhinos by creating fetuses and implanting them in southern white rhinos.

Looking down onto the African Plains. 

We went to the elephant viewing area where some work was being done. We waited a few minutes for it to finish and are glad we did. The elephants were excited to be out of their night enclosure. One of the baby elephants appeared to be waving its trunk as it came down. The elephants hurried to eat some leaves before the dominant matriarch got there. We saw some of the elephants taking mud baths. We learned that elephants are scared of bees and that they walk 6-7 miles per day, even at the zoo.

Coming out of their night enclosure.

Megan, Matthew and Me with the elephants enjoying some leaves.

Matthew and Megan with birds in one of the aviaries. The jungle aviary was especially nice.

Anteater wandering around its enclosure.

We enjoyed going to the wildlife show. It was cool with a lot of birds flying right over our heads. The tortoise wasn't sure about coming out but eventually did.

U, Megan, Me and Matthew

Nestling Matthew

We enjoyed our time in Walkabout Australia. We saw both the male and female platypus! (The female is often hard to see.)

We went to see the kangaroo and wallaby a few times. They were mostly resting.

Tiger prowling around.

We went on a wildlife safari which was awesome! It was neat to get our on the plains closer to the animals.

We learned a lot. For instance, male giraffes will taste their mate's pee to determine if they are pregnant. Giraffes need to drink about a gallon of water per week. That is good since they get into an awkward position to drink which makes them susceptible to predators. (Humans are very inefficient with our water needs.) Giraffe poop is about the size of deer poop. The calcium deposits on the heads of male giraffes are appealing to the females. Giraffe males use their horns to fight. 

Secretary birds kill vipers and lizards. 

Herd females will react to any male herding them in the absence of a male of their species. There was a little male antelope that was bossing a lot of the other bigger females around a while back. They removed him from the plains but the other antelope species are still not nice to the species that that male belonged to.

Matthew and Megan waiting for our safari (by capturing some Pokémon).

Some of the bigger antelope.

It was one of these little male antelope that bossed all the other antelope around.

We had some curious giraffe visitors. It was fun to watch them for awhile.

Nobody messes with the Cape Buffalo!

Matthew and Me with the kangaroos one last time after our safari.

After leaving the Safari Park, we took U to the airport for his flight home. We were glad he was able to spend these days with us.