Delusions of... Everything

Wordless Wednesday

I couldn't resist, I just had to share my pictures of the Koalas from the San Diego Zoo.  I think they are the most adorable creatures ever!

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

April 2011

San Diego Zoo Safari Park vs. The San Diego Zoo

If you go to San Diego and are trying to decided between the Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, make the trip to the Safari Park.  It's worth the 30 minute drive!

The safari park sits on 1800 acres.  This give the animals lots of room to roam around.

 

The elephants especially love it.

This little one had a great time playing with a box.

We paid a little extra to take a photo safari.  It was a splurge that was well worth it.  We had close encounters with grazing animals, rhinos and giraffe. 

A bonus to this safari was feeding the giraffes!

 

We were all pretty darn excited about this development!  The giraffes were so cool!

After our time at the Safari Park, the San Diego Zoo seemed really anti-climatic.  My advice if you want to experience both parks is to go to the Zoo first then go to the Safari Park.  You won't be able to do both in one day.  We spent all day at the Safari Park, but only a couple hours at the Zoo, that's because there were only two animals we wanted to see.

Koalas

And Pandas

We also saw Baboons having sex but none of us had the guts to photograph that event!

(I'm still editing Sea World pictures, so it will be a few days before that post hits the internet!)

The Insects

This next one is dead!   I just love the detail on the wing.

Can you tell I'm having fun with my camera and new lens?

The Heron

Last fall I was sitting in my office reading Asthmagirl's blog and out of the corner of my eye through the window I saw a very large bird flying, then I heard a very  large thud on the roof right above my head.  In the matter of a fraction of a second I processed it was a heron, it had landed on the roof and it was scoping out the fish in the pond.

Sure enough by the time I got to a window where I could see the pond the heron was sitting on the side looking with one eye to the water and the other eye looking everywhere else, they are such shy bird.  I frantically searched for the camera, found it in Star Wars Son's room and went to the kitchen where I knew I could the best shot.  Dead battery!! 

I've been waiting for that heron to come back.  I've seen it fly over the house a number of times, but I haven't seen it stop until yesterday.  I grabbed the camera, hurried to the kitchen, but not too close to the window, again no battery.  At least this time it had been on the charger and Handy Man went to grab it for me.  I didn't want to move, for fear of scaring away the heron.

Through the window these are the best shots I could get.  My shutter speed was a little too slow and my ISO was set for 200, instead of the 400 it should have been set at for a shoot like this, but it is what it is.  I really didn't know how long the heron would hang out.

Then he took off!

Before the battery was in the camera he went after the fish twice by torpedoing his head into the water.  When Handy Man got back to me with the battery he saw what the heron was up to and made a move to scare him away.  "Not before I get my shots." I said.  Then Dancing Daughter came to see was we were oohhing and ahhhing over and freaked out, in a really good way, except it scared the heron away.

The pictures were taken through the window.  I hope to get more opportunities to take more shots of the heron.  Hopefully next time the storm window will be off and I will have washed the kitchen window.