Zoo Day, 01-18-21

BIRTHDAY WEEK, DAY TWO – Zoo Day! After a light breakfast, I went through my emails and social media stuff, did a little journaling and then headed over to the Sacramento Zoo. They still have their COVID protocols in place, so folks have to wear a mask, and they limit the number of people allowed in at one time (so you have to have an appointment to come in). I kind of wish they’d keep doing that even after the COVID thing is over.

It was super windy all day, and got up to a record-breaking high of 73° (“normal” for this time of year is about 56° here.)

CLICK HERE for the full album of photos.

The zoo is refurbishing some areas to better utilize what space they have, so, in some areas the animals were off-exhibit. For example, Rocky the Rhinoceros Iguana had been displaced while her habitat was being cleaned out and redone, so she was hanging out in an exam room in the vet center inside the zoo.

And when the Wolf’s Guenon monkeys were off exhibit, their habitat was given to Charlie, the Great Horned Owl, so he had a larger space to fly in if he wanted to.

I got to see most of the animals I was hoping to see, except for the Snow Leopards. Neither Blizzard nor Misha were out today. I did see the lions (who were super-sleepy this morning) and the female jaguar (who was eating grass).

The Thick-Billed Parrots seemed more visible today, and some of them are starting to make nests for themselves in the nest boxes supplied to them. They’re also given balls of shredded newspaper to tear apart and use for nesting materials. I wonder how many babies the zoo gets each year.

Thick-Billed Parrot, Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha

Among the duck food feeder stations scattered around the park, I saw crows and a Black Phoebe stealing the food. They literally crammed their beaks full of the soggy food before flying off with it. Then the Phoebe posed for quite a few photos before flying off.

The Sumatran Orangutans (all of whom have birthdays this month) were out, but they were being a little anti-social. One of them wouldn’t come out of her cave, and the big male kept turning his butt to cameras, and eventually picked up a blanket and pulled it over his head. Hah!

Glory, the baby giraffe, was very proud of herself when she was able to get a twig with leaves on it and dragged it around and played with it. It was so cute to see her do her spread-leg stance to pick the twig up off the ground before throwing it up again. She’s still a “tiny” girl when compared to the adult giraffes in the enclosure.

The Red Kangaroos were out, but I didn’t see any of the wallabies. The flamingos were very chatty, and were joined in their noise by whistling ducks.

I walked for about 2½ hours and stopped to get an ice cream cone before I left. The guy piled so much of the soft-serve ice cream onto the cone that the minute he passed the cone over to me, all of the ice cream toppled over and landed on the ground. “Uh, you don’t have to pay for that,” he said, and he put together another cone for me. Hah!

The walk around the zoo equaled 1.36 miles, so I was able to count it as my #6 walk in my #52HikeChallenge. Woot!