San Diego Zoo

Seeing some of the local tourist attractions

Event report 20080506

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Once we moved back to San Diego, we promised ourselves that we would take advantage of living in "America's Finest City" and visit some of the local tourist attractions. The San Diego Zoo is a world-class facility and an institution in San Diego. We chose a day that was not busy, but the weather was overcast making photos challenging. Sadly, I burned out after a few hours and we only saw at most 10% of the whole place. But fear not, since we are zoo members, we get admission "free" and will return for another dose soon.

The photos below are what we saw.

This is duck of some kind, and he was not afraid of humans at all. He worked the crowd looking for handouts.

The flamingos were noisy and busy preening. The overcast sky made their colors seem more muted than reality.

Number 12 has something on his mind other than feeding.

It is interesting how they stand on one leg. The claim is they do this to preserve body heat and having their legs in cold water drains the heat.

This male peacock was defending his territory and treated us to a great display of colorful feathers.

A close-up of his head. Their beaks are sharp and sure to produce a nasty bite if one were to put their fingers in the wrong place.

The color of his feathers was stunning. I wish the light had been better.

The flamingoes have odd beaks that have a crook in them.

A wallaby. Cute, in a marsupial sort of way.

I am not sure what this is other than some kind of African herbivore.

A meerkat checks out the tourist population.

The elephants knew we were watching, but did not care. I think this is an Asian Elephant.

I think this is an African Elephant as it has tusks.

Their hide has a very interesting pattern.

Very curious about people. The giraffes came right up to us and stuck their noses in our faces.

Not all the animals were in cages. I am not sure of the circumstances of their presence, but it was pleasant to watch.

A Siberian bear. He looks asleep, but his eyes are watching the tourists.

This grizzly was doing laps around the enclosure at a near-run. They were always in motion.

There were a pair of grizzly bears in the enclosure and they were both highly active when we passed by.

This guy is doing 10 to life for crimes unknown. Note the pads on his feet and long coat. I should have noted the species of monkey, but I did not.

The pandas are an ever-popular attraction.

The pandas are a bamboo-eating machine.

This fellow has it all figured out. He lays on his back and chows down on bamboo. I watched him for several minutes and he was eating 100% of the time.

It took both hands to accommodate this branch. I cannot imagine that the shafts of the bamboo are tasty, but I am not a panda either.

The zoo is a great place, but they sure know how to work the tourists. I bought a soda with my burger at lunch and that bad boy was $4. It made me thing I was at the theater!! Every path leads to either a snack bar (with the $4 sodas) or a gift shop. Commercialism aside, they do a great job and it is one of San Diego's premier tourist spots. I am just happy we live here.

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