Friday, August 23, 2013

Bucket List - San Diego Zoo (CHECK)

Yes, I have a bucket list...like most.  Most of mine involves places I want to travel to.  In the US.  Around the world .  With my son having just gotten hitched in California, it provided me the perfect opportunity to tackle one that I have had for a long time. The. San. Diego. Zoo.  

So I am going to say this right now...my biggest disappointment was...we found no signs of them having penguins.  Really?  No Penguins.  I have to just believe that we rushed through everything and just missed the.  Totally no excuse for not having penguins.  
Of course, there were flamingos.  This picture doesn't reflect the spot where they had several with nests that actually had eggs in them.  This...below...is a flamingo chick.  Thank goodness...they grow up to be beautiful.  Definitely a face only a mother could love.  (smiling)





A stork of a different sort. My goal for this picture was mainly for the reflection/shadow in the water.  I believe it was bald as most other storks but his head was black so it was difficult to really tell.  He stood so still...except his head he did move around to confirm...he really was alive.



A zebra gone bad?
This is a hippo.  Yes.  It was very difficult to get a good picture mainly because I believe most of the people at the zoo this day was here...at the hippo pool trying to get pictures. Yes, those are it's teeth.

A hog of sorts.  Beautiful color with a ridgeback.  Sorry, didn't capture alot of the official names...after all..what's in a name, right?


This cute monkey climbed to the top and posed just perfectly.  Here we have the Pandas.  On the right, a red Panda.  Below the one we all know well but wait...what...they don't eat just bamboo and vegetation. They actually are known to capture animals and tear their head off before dining on them.  Now how cute and cuddly are they to you. This was the young cub.  Mom and Dad were quietly sleeping...and I'm kind of glad.

The red Panda...I think every zoo I have gone to resulted with the red Panda in this exact pose. 
 This next guy is a Sun Bear.  The cutest face ever.  It was warm out and he was definitely enjoying the summer dip. 


I was very impressed with my new lense that allowed me to capture these.  Hand held and panning to try to capture him.  Of course, the hummer was nice enough to not zip away and hung around long enough feeding on the agapanthas long enough to allow me to capture these. 


This guy was really into his bone!!!



And this was a result of being in the right place at the right time....taking a summer daytime sprtiz shower.

And the Koala did as I always see them doing...sleeping.  This little one woke up enough and moved around enough to at least have allowed everyone to see his face and watch him stretch and yawn a bit.

Being the gardener that I am...I almost enjoyed the plethora and wide variety of vegetation as I did the animals,




We rushed through everything trying to keep the girls entertained and on some type of a schedule considering the next day we had to fly home.  Was I overly impressed with the San Diego Zoo...not overly.  The animal areas were kind of small for my liking. It was a massive zoo and definitely need to have at minimum the FULL day to see what you can and maybe even come back for another.  Again, I enjoyed the vegetations as much...and I still fully enjoy the Milwaukee Zoo.  

I was told that the Omaha Zoo is as good...or better than the San Diego.

I think I will figure out how to be the judge of that.

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