Safari!

The San Diego Zoo's Safari Park (renamed from the Wild Animal Park, as it was very emphatically known last time I visited... when I was about 12) is less zoo-like than the actual Zoo (though there is a small zoo there), and has more emphasis on the wide-open spaces of the majority of the park.  They have options to rent Segways or get driven around in a small cart, or in a truck, but my friends and I chose to do the standard tram tour.  A lot of the animals are kind of far away, so I didn't take as many photos as I  might have - I only had a point-and-shoot and not very good zoom capabilities. :)

I got to spend Thursday (a couple weeks ago - this is a fairly delayed post) with a couple of friends from undergrad (and grad school) and their small child.  I failed to take a photo of awesomeness that was their red wagon, with a sunshade, that was extremely useful for transporting the young J and our supplies (water bottles, extra hats, etc.  It was quite a hot day (it is much further inland than the Zoo is, so doesn't have the cooling sea effect, though it also doesn't have the humidifying sea effect), and the zoo area of the Park has mist sprayers all over to help cool things down.  There is a little water play area for kids as well.

African pygmy geese.  These were full of cuteness.  So little.  Swimming in little circles.

Both the Zoo and the Safari Park have a lot of plants - the Zoo is also apparently one of the largest botanical gardens in the country.  So many gorgeous flowers.

Overview of the park.  It extends both to the left and right in this view, as well as in directions not visible from that vantage point.

Lion in the zoo-like part of the park.

Cheetah taking a nap in the shade.

The tram thoughtfully provides an animal identification panel.  The drivers also describe and identify the more interesting animals encountered on the trip.  The park is big enough that one never knows, from tram-tour to tram-tour, which animals one will encounter where.  There are, of course, some animals in smaller enclosures separate from the rest (e.g., the cheetahs!) but there are a lot of animals in more or less free-range conditions out there!

Some cool bird with a neat tail.

(after finding this, I think it is a blue crane)

Some antelope-y things.

(possibly gemsbok)

Cape buffalo.  Apparently not very nice.

Possibly Soemmering's gazelle.

Giraffe.  Don't remember which subspecies.

Another giraffe (reticulated?), with a truck.

One thing I didn't realize prior to this visit is that many of the reddish brown animals are not very visible against green grass.  This works better if you are hiding from predators with minimal color vision, than from humans with decent color vision.  We see antelopey things.  Lions see humps of grass.

Pelicans.

Northern white rhino, female.  Only seven animals of this species in the world, two in this park.

Mixed species enclosure.

Young males necking.

After the tram tour - the lions have a 4x4 in their enclosure that is a good napping spot.

Crazy plant.  These were all over the park, and I don't know what they are.

Lesser flamingos, nesting.

Abyssinian ground hornbill.

Crowned crane.  It was at about this point (just after lunch) that we lost baby J and her dad to a nap.  :)

A vulture.  Not entirely sure what species...

Egyptian vulture.

Lorikeet.  A and I went into the lori enclosure, and saw a few birds up in the trees here and there.  Shortly after we left, as we were walking past the aviary, several birds came flying across the aviary and landed not far from where we were.  Another single bird then came and sat on a fence inside the aviary - on the other side of the aviary fencing from where we were.

Can't you see the tiger?  yeah, me neither.  I think we decided he was taking a nap under that tree in the middle of the photo, which is probably why I took this picture.

Bighorn sheep.

African pygmy falcon.  Tiny bird.  Totally adorable.

J and J (father and child) playing in a fox den.

Red river hogs.

Every evening, a dog and then a cheetah run down a strip of grass after a lure (the dog is the cheetah's companion and goes first to show the cheetah that things are safe).  After the first sprint, the cheetah gets a bowl of rabbit and cools down a bit.  If the handlers think she has enough energy (a full out cheetah-chasing-animal sprint can't be sustained for more than a minute because otherwise they overheat and have no more energy to do important things like keep living), she runs again.  We got to see her run again, yay!  I didn't even try to take a photo during the run, figuring my camera wouldn't have the response time necessary - and lots of people with fancy cameras still tried, despite the announcer repeatedly telling them it wouldn't likely work.  We were on the receiving end of the first run - she spun out in a wide turn, skidding on the grass.  On the second run, we were on the launching end - just about full speed in two or three strides.  It was incredible.

We went on the tram tour again after the cheetah run.  I have no idea what this is :)

Baby J playing with my hat.

Ostrich and ruminants.

Ostrich eggs.

Another fantastic flower.  Some of the flowers on this plant were mostly red.  Some had more yellow, only a couple were like this with a big splash of yellow.  All of the color demarcations were very dramatic like this though.  Some of the leaves were striped too!