San Diego Zoo
Balboa Park, San Diego
January 7, 2018
We have explored various places and things in the New Year, but have fallen behind in blogging about them. We started off 2018 with a visit to the San Diego Zoo, to see its new exhibit, Africa Rocks. We arrived first thing in the morning, and so saw the animals when they tend to be most active.
“Africa Rocks” can be entered either from the top, in which case the entrance is a bit to the right as visitors enter the zoo, or from the bottom. We went down into the canyon first and then walked up through the exhibit.
We first saw Cape Fynbos penguins and leopard sharks, swimming together in an enclosure. These South African (not Antarctic) penguins were fun to watch, and it was a while before we walked on to the next set of animals.
We next saw several kinds of brightly marked turtles from west Africa and Madagascar, along with a west African dwarf crocodile. Moving on to the land animal enclosures, we watched fossas leaping from branch to branch; across from them were lemurs.
There was an energetic ratel (or “honey badger”) playing with a gourd. We read that it breaks open bee hives to eat larvae. This is definitely an animal that knows what it wants and goes after its target single mindedly!
Within the Africa Rocks exhibit is a two-level aviary containing at least 15 different bird species. We liked the black headed weavers, which were small and had beautiful yellow bodies; the white bellied “go away” bird (got to love the name — larger, crested, and noisy); the yellow crowned bishop; and the multicolored Fischer’s lovebird.
We watched the leopards for a while, and were interested by the interaction between the pair – an adult female and an adolescent male. We went on to see baboons and eagles. At the top of the Africa Rocks exhibit the pre-existing kopje area, which includes dwarf mongooses and rock hyrax, has been incorporated.
After leaving Africa Rocks we strolled through the koala area, watched some flamingos squabbling, then left the zoo. One of the nice things about being zoo members – which we have been ever since moving to San Diego – is that we feel free to see part of the zoo and then leave, and do not feel that we have to see the entire park in one visit.
