It looks like our San Diego sojourn is going to be cut short since my back went wonkers this week. At least we managed to see the most iconic attraction this city has to offer: The San Diego Zoo. This is actually the second time I've been to the zoo. In 1980 some close friends moved to Orange County (an urban area just south of Los Angeles), and one of the things we did during our visit out to California to see them was a road trip to the San Diego Zoo.
I think 'road trip' doesn't EXACTLY convey a car trip which included a three year old as well as his older brother who was under pressure to learn the multiplication tables. The older brother was not thrilled at the idea of the memorization of something which he had concluded could just as easily be accomplished by using a calculator. He was very resistant, and as it turns out, prescient. (If someone asks you today what 9x7 is, a shocking number of us would just open the iphone calculator function for the answer.)
What I mainly remember is how big the zoo was, and by the end of the day in 1980 I was envying the three year old's option to ride in his stroller rather than walk. Fast forward thirty seven years and the biggest difference from then to now was how people get around the park. There are now three varieties of 'people movers' used throughout the zoo. First, you can take a 'bus tour' of the zoo. Think Grayline doubledecker open air buses rolling around the entire zoo. This is a 'tour', and there is non-stop commentary as well as photo opportunities. You stay on the bus, but you can stand up, move to the other side and so forth to take pictures. That's how I got the shot of this polar bear.
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Polar bear hair follicles are actually tubes, and in San Diego, their fur is 'green' because
algae is growing inside the hair follicles |
The second form of transportation is the Kangaroo Trolley. There are several 'stops' throughout the zoo, and you hop on and hop off at the stops just like a kangaroo. Finally, you can take a gondola all the way across the zoo and back. Even with better transportation, the zoo resembles a maze. The zoo management cleverly scattered zoo volunteers all over the place to help out with directions. Part of the difficulty in getting around is the fault of the zoo map. The map is mostly a cartoon map with pictures of animals to show where they are. Also, this is a patchwork quilt of a place since many enclosures have been 'added' on or 'remodeled', and getting from Animal A to Animal B is rarely a straight shot.
We planned our trip to the zoo like it was a military campaign. First, we wanted to go when all the elementary aged rug rats were back in school. Second, we wanted a cloudy, cool day. From past zoo experiences, we knew the animals would be more active if the day was cool and overcast. And, that's what we did. On the day we visited, there was a mixture of the toddler crowd with the oldster tourists like us. It was pretty uncrowded, so we really enjoyed seeing everything.
My favorite part of the zoo were the two aviaries. I love aviaries. In this zoo there were bird feeders everywhere. I actually saw a Hammerkop catch and eat a fish out of a little 'stream' running through one of the aviaries! I was buzzed so closely by Metallic Starlings heading to a feeder, that my hair ruffled The benches are covered (like bus stops), so you don't receive any unwelcome surprises from overhead. I could have sat there looking at the exotic birds all day long.
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| This is the bird who caught and ate a fish right out of the stream in front of him. |
What's important about this zoo goes on behind the viewing areas. This is the zoo that saved the California Condor from extinction. They have two Great Pandas on loan from China, and the San Diego Zoo has the most successful panda breeding program in the entire country. They are trying to save tigers, elephants, and rhinoceros to name a few from extinction. They have pioneered innovative treatments of exotic animals. What surprised me the most was a white dog inside the cheetah enclosure. Cheetahs are very high strung, and the white dog and the cheetah were raised together from the time they were both born, so they view one another as friends rather than hunter and prey. The dog's function is to keep the cheetah mellow, and if my pictures are any indication, he's doing a good job.
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| This is a California Condor; their wing span can be up to 25' |
My one disappointment was we didn't see the Great Pandas. They were slumbering inside their outdoor cave - they sleep about 20+ hours a day, and the only chance to really see them is feeding time. We decided not to stand in front of the enclosure for 40 minutes waiting for feeding time. The other big sleepers were the koalas. They sleep about 22 hours a day. The zoo cleverly designed sleeping perches for them which just happen to be in perfect view of the spectators like us.
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| One of fifteen sleeping perches in the koalas Eucalyptus 'forest' |
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| The cheetah watching us |
This was a great day. And, we topped it off with dinner at a French Bistro in a hip part of town. I ate a local sea bass over quinoa in a white wine butter sauce with very tiny pieces of asparagus scattered through the quinoa. It was the best restaurant fish dish I've eaten in quite awhile. Of course, we ended the evening with chocolate mousse.
I hope you enjoy the pictures. I edited these on Google Photo. If you click on the information button, you should see the kind of information I usually put directly on the individual pictures when I'm editing in the now obsolete Picasa program.
