Out & About—Puma concolor

I spoke to the Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society on February 11, 2020, about nature’s geometry in succulents, and spoke on the same subject at the San Gabriel Valley Cactus & Succulent Society on February 13.

Bakersfield is a 4-hour drive from me, and the Los Angeles County Arboretum where San Gabriel Valley Cactus & Succulent Society meets, is a 3-hour drive, so it’s not like I was going to come home after Bakersfield and then drive back to Los Angeles through all that horrendous traffic.

Thus, I spent Wednesday out and about Bakersfield, exploring trains, zoos, arboretums and gardens, and the campus of California State University-Bakersfield.

Bakersfield has a zoo and arboretum by the name of California Living Museum, or CALM for short. It specializes in California native fauna and flora.

I have been a member of zoos, arboretums, aquariums, and animal sanctuaries since I was 13 when my wise old grandmother got me a membership to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. After that it was the San Antonio Zoo and Houston Zoo.

I came to San Diego, California, in April 1993, and as soon as I decided to stay (took three days!), I immediately joined the San Diego Zoo, and I have been a member ever since.

The California Living Museum is only 14 acres with 250 animals representing 80 species. I could not find any information on the number of plant species.

Compare that to the San Diego Zoo at 99 acres, 3,700 animals, and 650 species. Compare both to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park at 1,800 acres, 3,500+ animals, and 400+ species. Consequently, I didn’t know quite what to expect. I really thought that it would take no more than 90 minutes or so to check out everything.

I was wrong!

It took four hours!

Seeing native California animals was great, especially those that I had not seen before, such as coyotes, various rattlesnakes, coatamundi (still don’t know what that is!), and the beautiful mountain lion (Puma concolor).

Although the San Diego Zoo has a mountain lion, it’s a lazy ass cat and always is sleeping in its cave whenever I go by. The one at CALM was perched on a rock watching the people who were watching it. I got my best picture ever of this beautiful big kitty:

Would you look at that tail!

I will have more pictures of this beautiful and impressive little zoo in future posts.

As an aside, I know I have readers who despise zoos and aquariums. All of the fauna at CALM are in three categories:

1. 1. Animals that are injured and unable to hunt or defend themselves, so they cannot be released back into the wild.
   2. Animals that have been rescued from the illegal pet trade. When animals are taken from their territory, returning them to a different territory usually means their death, either from not knowing where to hunt in their territory or being killed by other animals defending that territory. Since it is unknown where their territory was, they can’t be released back into the wild.
   3. Animals that have been imprinted. This sometimes happens when injured animals are rescued and treated for their injuries. One always hopes for their complete recovery and return to the wild, but sometimes the animal becomes too accustomed to humans providing for its food, health, and safety, a condition known as imprinting.

Without zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries, these animals would probably be euthanized. Instead, they can live out their lives in comfort. There also is quite a lot of research indicating that people won’t (or can’t) spend the money and time to make a trip to the wild to see these animals, but to see them in zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries often turns people into animal activists and conservationists. I also met one San Diego Zoo employee who told me that she visited the Zoo when she was 8 years old. She decided she wanted to work there one day. She got a degree in biology and has worked at the Zoo for 17 years.

The Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden—A Review

The Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden
A Review

I became a fan of zoos after my first visit to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, in summer 1966. If I had never seen a giraffe, or an elephant, or a rhinoceros, or a hippopotamus…. I never would have taken such an interest in their plight in the world.

A couple of years later, a real live monkey showed up in our yard. My wise old grandmother told me to give it a banana. I though that was only in cartoons. The darn thing ate it. And as with just about any animal, if you feed it, it’s yours.

That monkey stayed in the trees in our back yard for several months. I named it Cheetah.

Then, one day, people showed up to take Cheetah. They were people from the San Antonio Zoo. A monkey was considered an exotic pet, and exotic pets were not allowed in Kingsville, Texas. We had to let them capture Cheetah and take him away.

When San Antonio hosted Hemisfair in 1968, I convinced my wise old grandmother to take me to San Antonio. Sure I wanted to go to Hemisfair, but more importantly to this little boy, I wanted to go to the San Antonio Zoo to see Cheetah.

I don’t know whether or not Cheetah recognized me, but to this day I believe he did. All one has to do is watch YouTube videos about animals recognizing those who rescued them, fed them, and cared for them, even after being separated from them for weeks, months, and, in one case, 11 years. Yeah, our animals that we care for know who we are.

Yesterday, Jim and I went to the Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden. I had never been to the Los Angeles Zoo, but since I have been going to the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park on a regular basis for 26½ years, I already knew that the Los Angeles Zoo didn’t have anything that I had not already seen. Thus, my main interest was in the Botanical Garden aspect of the zoo with the possible intent of including a section in my forthcoming book, SSS: Southwest Succulent Staycation.

The Los Angeles Zoo opened in 1966, so it’s about fifty years younger than the San Diego Zoo. However, at 133 acres, it is 33 acres larger. However, there are only about 1,400 animals residing at the Los Angeles Zoo. After walking the whole zoo yesterday, I would guess that about 70 acres is simply unused land. Jim and I always are tired after a trip to the San Diego Zoo. We didn’t experience that after walking the Los Angeles Zoo.

I was disappointed in the zoo but I might be unreasonably comparing it to the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. The L.A. Zoo was quite busy yesterday. However, it needs a serious cleaning, including a parking lot renovation. The asphalt probably is the original asphalt from when the zoo opened in 1966. The whole place was overgrown with weeds. Deciduous trees had dropped all their leaves; unfortunately, all over the exhibits, making a mess of them, making a mess of any horticultural exhibits beneath the trees, making a mess of the various play areas for children.

Notwithstanding all the problems, there were several things that made the visit worthwhile:

1. 1. 1. I now have been to the Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden.
      2. The birds show was excellent because it featured birds that you won’t be seeing in your back yard: two African vultures (huge birds!) and a California Condor (another huge bird!)
         
      3. Although many of the botanical gardens were weedy and covered with leaves, I did get enough good pictures for my book.
      4. The giraffe feeding line was very long, and having fed the giraffes at the San Diego Zoo, I can tell you that feeding giraffes is quite an experience. This final picture shows a little girl feeding a giraffe. I believe this little girl will grow up with an appreciation of wildlife—my appreciation of wildlife started by feeding a monkey. Perhaps this little girl will get a college degree in wildlife conservation, maybe even work in a zoo providing this type of experience to the next generation.

All pictures in this post were taken by me
at the Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden
on December 29, 2019.

Picture of the Moment—Flamingo season at the San Diego Zoo

There are 7 flamingo chicks at the San Diego Zoo, and many more on the way. Mommas are momma-ing, daddies are daddy-ing, eggs are lying, and chicks are walking and flapping.

New giraffe species at the San Diego Zoo

I discovered many decades ago that annual memberships to places that one enjoys going quite regularly are very worthwhile.

First, they save a lot of money.

Second, though, things are always changing.

As my wise old grandmother told me after I had become the largest typing service in Kingsville, Texas: “If you want to stay #1, you have to change.”

At the time that didn’t make sense to me, but after watching several companies—Quark Express, Lotus 1-2-3, PC Word, Wordstar, WordPerfect—with #1 market share disappear because they failed to change, either with the times or in response to competition, I now understand.

The San Diego Zoo is another case in point. When I was watching Johnny Carson in the ’60s and ’70s, two of his regular guests came from the Cincinnati Zoo and the San Diego Zoo. Even though San Diego was much closer to Hollywood, I thought the Cincinnati Zoo got more exposure. That put the Cincinnati Zoo on my list of top zoos to visit.

When I finally got to the Cincinnati Zoo in 1995, it was a major disappoint-ment, especially since I had already been a member of the San Diego Zoo for a year. I was soooooooooo looking forward to visiting what I had always considered the #1 zoo in North America. Sadly, the exhibits and the zoo itself were overgrown with weeds, the alligator exhibit was disgustingly gross and odiferous, and many daytime animals simply were nowhere to be found. I now know that the Cincinnati Zoo had lost a major benefactor due to his death and had not found a replacement for several millions of dollars that had flowed into the zoo each year.

Here at the San Diego Zoo, they continue to expand the boundaries of zoo exhibits, being the first zoo to create natural exhibits where several different species live together, just like in the wild. Conrad Prebys, San Diego Zoo’s major benefactor, died a few years ago but left a lot of money to the San Diego Zoo. Thus, we have the Conrad Prebys Koalifornia koala exhibit, the Conrad Prebys elephant care facility, and the newly opened Conrad Prebys Africa Rocks! exhibit.

The San Diego Zoo comprises only 100 acres, though, so when an area gets renovated, they have to do something with all the animals that made that area home. Typically, they will loan them out to other zoos, and other zoos reciprocate when they are undergoing their own renovations. The San Diego Zoo also often rescues animals from other zoos that didn’t make it financially, or “backyard zoos” which are typically still found in the Midwest and South. A couple of years ago, several abused and distressed elephants from an Oklahoma Zoo and a backyard zoo in Texas were brought to the San Diego Zoo and rehabilitated, now happily roaming around 14 acres with their own herd.

Recently I discovered a new giraffe species at the San Diego Zoo.

I was quite surprised because I had read nothing about this new species in the Zoo Magazine or on the web site, and nothing in the news about it.

It’s quite an interesting animal.

Here’s its picture:

And you thought this whole post was going to be serious. I guess I just can’t be trusted.

Plants of the San Diego Zoo

One of the meetup groups that I belong to is the Pacific Photographic Society with 2,248 members.

A perk of having that many members is that when we ask a company or its representative if we can have access to something, the answer rarely is no. Companies seem to be only too happy to let a bunch of photographers come in and take pictures of everything, even behind the scenes. Quite often we’ll be asked to provide our best pictures to the company, and sometimes those pictures get used in promotional brochures for the company, with photographer credit!

A disadvantage for me is that I have about $3,000 worth of equipment. That sounds like a lot but there are people in the group who have $30,000 worth of equipment. I can’t compete with them, nor do I want to. So I try to do things differently. When I go out with the group, I usually am the last person in line. I watch what the other people are taking pictures of, and then I take pictures of something different.

Such is the case each year when our last event is a visit to the San Diego Zoo. I have been going to the Zoo an average of once a week for many years, so I have billions and billions and billions of animal pictures. Since the San Diego Zoo also is an internationally recognized botanical garden, I also have billions and billions and billions of plant pictures. It’s the plants that people seem never to notice when they go to the Zoo, and since I love plants as much as the animals, I have an advantage there.

So, of course, at our Zoo visit on December 31, 2017, I took nothing but plant pictures. Well, I was promoted to group photographer since I was the only one with any kind of a wide-angle lens, mine being a Tamron 16-300mm zoom lens, so I got to take the group photo::

I’ll share pictures of some of the animals from my two visits to the Zoo on the last two days of the year but meanwhile you’ll have to be satisfied with plant pictures. Of the following, the first two pictures are getting a lot of comments and “best picture” votes, and that was my intent, to show them that there is more to the Zoo than just the animals.

Which plant picture is your favorite?

1 – Teeny tiny mushroom forest

2

3 – Cycad

4

5 – I think these are dates

6 – Aerial roots of a Ficus tree

7

8 – Philodendron branch

9 – Philodendron fruit

10

11 – Ficus tree

12

Picture of the Moment—I’m just a hairy guy, morning, noon & night

Yesterday Jim & I went to the San Diego Zoo for two purposes: to visit the finally completed, now open Conrad Prebys Africa Rocks exhibit; and to test out my new Tamron 90mm macro lens on the plants.

If you ever go to the San Diego Zoo, slow down and look around because the Zoo is both a world-renowned botanical garden and a world-renowned zoo.

I’m heading back to the Zoo momentarily with my Tamron 16-300 daily walkaround lens to get pictures of Africa Rocks. Meanwhile, here’s a picture from yesterday that encouraged me to return today with the zoom lens:

Daddy, Mommy & Baby Baboon

Get a load of the hair on daddy! Straight out of the Summer of Love!

I should come back with many hundreds of pictures that I’ll be able to use for future blog posts, so if you aren’t following me yet, now might be the time!

Happy New Year’s Eve to all!

Playing docent for friends at the San Diego Zoo

Remember that if you come to San Diego for any reason and need a personal docent for the day, I’m always up for it. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. They can be YOURS, free, just like I got them!

Yesterday I played docent for two old friends that I had not seen since 1983, other than Facebook, of course. Here are some pictures from our trip to the Zoo:

Grizzly Bear

Panda. Remember that these are not bears. Just pandas.

Baby monkey, although I don’t know what species.

A female gazelle, looking very pregnant
and being checked on by her previous child.

Polar Bear enjoying the San Diego sunshine.

Reindeer, but not Rudolph, obviously.

Arctic fox. There were two of them yesterday. In 23 years of going to the San Diego Zoo at least once a month, and usually once a week, these are only the second and third pictures I have gotten of the arctic fox.

Got a group photo of some well-known people.

California Condor. Extinct in the wild as recently as 1987 with only 22 birds still living, all in captivity. The San Diego Zoo’s breeding program has resulted in the re-introduction into the wild. It still is one of the world’s rarest birds, with 446 now living both in the wild and in captivity.

Hyrax. I got up close and personal with my 150-600 mm lens.

Meerkat. One of my favorite animals. They are so much fun to watch.

Hyrax momma and her two young ones. The look on her face! Is she thinking that some sort of pervert is taking pictures of her young ones sucking on her teats and is going to put them on the Internet?

Squirrel. This is a “local animal” according to the Zoo,
meaning that it is free to come and go at will. Of course, it knows
where the best food is, not to mention lots of friends!

Kookaburra. It’s difficult to get a good picture of these birds because of the tiny mesh surrounding their enclosure. They have to be at just the right distance from the mesh for my 150-600 mm lens to get through the mesh.

Silverback Gorilla, pondering.

Orangutan, also pondering.

Out & About—Here, There & Everywhere

Many readers who like my San Diego Historical Landmarks series might think that I have given up on them. Not so. I simply want to do them in order, and I got stuck at #15. Its name is “Conception,” and it’s on the United States Naval Submarine Base at Point Loma. In other words, it’s not accessible to the general public….

….Except for one day each year. Guess which day that is? Yep. Today. “Cabrillo Festival” day. So you know where I’ll be going later today, and I can resume my San Diego Historical Landmarks series. I have no idea what I’ll find there since I have not done any research on #15 year.

Meanwhile…. September has been a very active month for getting Out & About, and I’ll have blog posts on everything as the summer comes to a close and the cold, wet, fall and winter months arrive. To whet your appetite, here’s a sample of some of the places I’ve been.

We’ll start at home with Zoey the Cool Cat. I continue to take care of her every need—boxes, tummy rubs, food, clean litter box, food for the squirrels and rabbits so she can get her daily exercise running from window to window watching them, and what does she do? Turns her back on me.

September 3—Wildlife Corner at our new home

September 9—Queen Califa’s Magical Circle in Kit Carson Park, Escondido

September 10—Surf Dog Surf-a-thon at Dog Beach in Del Mar

September 13—San Diego Zoo

September 15—Getting some kicks on Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga

September 16—Chili Cook Off & Classic Car Show in Alpine

September 18—Big Border Baby in Tecate

September 21—Watching trains in Colton

September 22—MCAS Miramar Air Show in San Diego

September 23—San Diego Bonsai Show

September 23—Wavecrest Woody Meet at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

September 24—Cuyamaca Rancho State Park near Julian

September 24—Apple Days in historic Julian

September 24—Gold mine tours in Julian

September 24—Cool shopping in Julian at The Warm Hearth, The Birdwatcher, and the Julian Jewel Box

September 25—Newest visitor to our new home

September 29—San Diego Quilt Show

 

Make sure all is well before taking possession

Many of the birds at the San Diego Zoo have nests with eggs in them.

The flamingos are the most noticeable but if one looks closely one can see a pair of southern screamers (Chauna torquata), also known as crested screamers, taking care of three eggs in their nest in Flamingo Lagoon.

Those two were having a changing of the guard. It’s virtually impossible to distinguish mama screamer from daddy screamer, so I have no idea whether mama was taking over or whether daddy was taking over. You can see the one taking over was checking out the eggs just to make sure that they were okay before taking possession of them.

According to Wikipedia,

The southern screamer establishes monogamous relationships that last its lifetime, estimated to be 15 years. Courtship involves loud calling by both sexes, which can be heard up to two miles away. For the nest, the couple makes a big platform of reeds, straws, and other aquatic plants in an inaccessible place near water. The female lays between two and seven white eggs. The couple share incubation, which takes 43 to 46 days. Chicks leave the nest as soon as they hatch, but the parents care for them for several weeks. The fledging period takes 8 to 14 weeks.

Southern Screamers live in southeastern Peru, northern Bolivia, Paraguay, southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. And, of course, the San Diego Zoo.

The following picture shows what the little ones will look like, although this little one from 2010 was giving me a little attitude:

Remember, if you get to San Diego, give me a call. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I also have been known to play docent for a day or two at no charge!

Complements the swamp monkeys in the White House

It’s spring time at the San Diego Zoo,

which means little ones are everywhere.

Here’s an Allen’s Swamp Monkey mama

with her little one.

Complements the swamp monkeys in the White House……..

Remember, if you get to San Diego, give me a call. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I also have been known to play docent for a day or two at no charge!