We started off at the "petting zoo," which was really just about 6 goats in a pen. My friend Alisha's kids were particularly disappointed--Elena kept saying "it's just petting goats?"--because they have goats at home.
Obviously Jed was really into petting the goats. Umm, yeah.
An anteater!
I really liked the Tyler Zoo because it didn't have that many fences. There were a lot of ditches and hedges separating the animals from us, and all the enclosures were really large. They also had animals from the same continent or habitat grouped together and it was cool to see them that way.
Obviously the cheetahs were well fenced :)
I didn't get a good picture of it, but the elephants' area was HUGE and in addition to the elephants, there were zebras, elands and ostriches running around together. It was so cool.
This pelican had some sort of a crazy growth on his bill. We thought he was pretty cool. We were lucky enough to be near the fish-eating birds at feeding time and it was awesome to watch the pelicans and cormorants catch the fish before they hit the water.
These black bears were so funny. They would play in the water for a while and then they would go crazy and wrestle each other, and then go back to playing in the water like nothing had happened. Jed thought they were really cool.
We stayed with the black bears for quite a while. I loved talking with Jed about bears--you can hear what "bear" means to him.
We stopped to feed the catfish and koi in a big pond near the North American animal exhibit--they had deer, buffalo, Texas longhorns and pheasants. While all those animals are great, we've seen them so many time that it was a little ho-hum. But the catfish were awesome, in a disgusting way. Their whiskers give me the willies.
The zoo also had a bird enclosure where all the birds were flying free. You could buy a stick covered in birdseed and feed the birds. We spent SO long here because it was so much fun.
There weren't any fancy birds--mostly parakeets and cockatoos--but we had so much fun. Jed loved it.
Apparently we need to work on not molesting animals at our house.
Finally he got the hang of it and had more customers than he knew what to do with.
I love all the beautiful colors of the parakeets.
I never could get a bird to land on me when I was feeding them, but Dave got lucky several times.
Dave, Jed and our friend Holland feeding.
Holland was so excited when this parakeet landed on his arm. I love the expression on his face--he held so still so it wouldn't fly away--quite a feat for a boy who loves to move as much as he does!
Seriously, I don't know how Dave got so lucky! He had so many birds land on him! Maybe because his hairy arms offer a better purchase? Who knows. I am only mildly jealous, as you can tell.
After we got done feeding the birds, we were wiped out. It was just SO hot! But we love the Tyler zoo and will definitely be returning.
1 comment:
Love the Pooh Bear reference! He's getting so big!
Post a Comment