Tijuana Slough and Imperial Beach

Almost every year we go south, we end up having an orchid or two to enjoy during our stay.  The next picture is of the two we bought this year, so far...  You can always click on picture to see it larger.

Thursday was a good day to go for a drive to the Tijuana Slough and hopefully get some interesting bird pictures.  The slough is just across the border from Mexico, a few miles south from San Diego.

The first seen was this ground squirrel, much different from our own squirrels.

And that was that for the slough... I think there used to be a board walk years ago, but now, viewing birds where we were in the slough is just not convenient at all.  We walked along a long berm between the slough and the Pacific ocean, and had no better luck seeing any birds.

The best thing was to get off the berm and onto the beach.  Shelling was far from great but the beach was quite interesting.

It seems that the berm held back water that slowly seeped back to the sea, making interesting [to me] designs in the sand.  Here the seepage is from the right side, carving little canyons on the beach before being flattened by the incoming tide.

Nest are two shorebirds doing their thing along the shore.

Joan is holding the day's booty from the beach: slim pickings at best.

The seeping waters made large parts of the beach very reflective, and interesting.

Every now and then, the seeping water made interesting patterns on the beach.  Here are a few that I made pictures of.

The local shorebirds seemed to find enough to eat, even if we couldn't find a shell or two.

And lastly, a few more patterns on the sand. 

Doesn't this just look like a scene from space?

Sometimes initial plans just fade away, only to be replaced by something better. Neat!

Safari Park in Escondido

We drove out to the SanDiego Zoo's Safari Park on Tuesday.  It lives up to its title since it consists of many wide open spaces with huge enclosures for African wild animals.  The best way to see this is to take the tram which slowly goes along a winding path that allows you to see the animals in situ.  While that may be the best way to see the animals and get an interesting description of their special needs or traits, it's not much fun attempting to make photos, more about that later.

Walking to the tram involves walking through many animal and bird displays with many large ponds, fountains, waterfalls and the like.

Here are a few ducks that I didn't identify, but thought they might still be of interest.  Don't they look like they were designed in a kindergarden class?

Further along, there was a huge area devoted to a group of gorillas: he's the male Silverback, leader of the group.

And here's a one year old baby...

Along the tram ride we saw two ostrich,

a bunch of antelope,

two giraffe, and some food in a tall tree.  Mind you, there were lots of other animals that were difficult to make good photographs of because of the almost constant movement of the tram.

Ever notice that when you take a tram, or some sort of educational ride, or walk, you'll be saddled with crying babies, loud little girls, rambunctious little boys, with Mothers desperately trying to establish some control, or just giving up and using their smartphone to take pictures?  I didn't think it was just us, but I digress...

The Safari Park also had a beautiful Japanese Garden that contained stunning Bonsai.

This is also something special to Safari Park: parking spaces near the entrance reserved for Hybrid cars.

On a similar topic, we noticed that in San Diego, they have electric Smart Cars available in various spots as shareable cars.  Here's a link that explains it all; what a great concept and it seems to work very well.  Now wouldn't that be a good idea for home?

San Diego Zoo

On the third Friday of each month, the San Diego Zoo opens its orchid greenhouse to the public.  It's a very crowded greenhouse, certainly not an exhibition showplace, but it does have a strange and wonderful purpose in life.

The Zoo's orchid house receives the orchids confiscated by border guards under the Cites regulations, the world wide covenant to protect wild plant trafficking. Most of the confiscated plants were literally ripped off trees in their native lands.  Many are extremely rare, many others are endangered.

The Zoo is one of a few places in the USA that receives these plants with the mandate to keep them alive.  They are not allowed to sell any plants, or their seed.  Their mandate causes a few problems: successful growing and continuing confiscations mean that the orchids grow and sometimes divide into many plants that all require more space.  That is the current conundrum of this orchid greenhouse; serious overcrowding.

The collection has many exceptional species of various orchids.

Many times, the confiscations involve many plants of the same species.

The next plants are all the same species, as nature would have it, the two left ones are an alba version of those on the right.  It's quite rare to see them together like this.

After an hour or so in the greenhouse, we walked down the alley of the big cats.

Next to the leopard was this little sun bear, looking around to find out where the keepers hid the food.

I must admit to being guilty of photographing the animals, after all, that's what zoos house, but this zoo also has huge areas that are simply jungles, like below.  It's just a space between different areas and it's been staged as wild nature with waterfalls and all.

Here's another 'space'.

There are special trees, bushes and flowers planted everywhere; here's one you'll see in the better flower stores.

One of the many exhibits is reserved for very small birds, including hummingbirds. Here's a little guy having a bath near one of the waterfalls in the exhibit.

And now, the update on Pally.

As you might remember, Pally weighed in at a paltry 3.2 pounds when he was rescued.  Joan weighed him today: 6 pounds!  Not bad for two months worth of caring and loving.  Pally's still growing into a teenager, and is honing his balance skills.

Kathleen and Phillip's TV is projected on a wall on the far side of the staircase that comes up from downstairs.  Between the staircase and the living room is a knee-wall with a 6" ledge.  

Here's Pally watching us watching TV.  

We were concerned since a fall would have Pally at the bottom of the staircase.  He's already fallen off chairs, knees, laps, beds, gates, and just about anything you can fall off of...

In roughly the same area, Pally's on the knee-wall trying to figure out how to get onto the lampshade.

So much to learn...

So far, no worries...

Garden Centres & Pally's Sleeping Choices

This was the official greeter at a plant nursery we visited a couple of days ago, his name was Pepper.  

The rest of the store was equally interesting.

The circular ring below is actually the top of a recycling water barrel that feeds all the green plants below it, while it also houses  fish in the centre of the well.  What a neat idea: you feed the fish, they feed the plants!  Great!

We ended up buying a flower pot to re-pot some balcony plants.  The pot was temporarily left at the foot of the patio door.  Pally, ever the curious explorer, quickly found the empty pot and found a good use for it...

Meanwhile, the daily dog walks give us some pretty nifty landscaping in the neighbourhood.

Today, we drove North to visit a sea side garden centre; wow, they had prepared pots and wall hangings that were just stunning. Note the background framed units: they are living walls, or living pictures.  They are framed for support, contain some soil and moss covering, and are planted with succulents that require very little moisture.

In the foreground, you can see the more usual shallow plantings of different succulents in a floral arrangement.

This nursery also was run by people with a sense of humour: note this fanciful display of 'mountain' sheep.

After discovering the flower pot yesterday, Pally had a hard time choosing between Maverick's comfortable bed, or the very confining flower pot.

Much to Maverick's relief, the pot seems to be favoured, for now...

The World Famous San Diego Zoo

All the literature, magazine, books, and references to this wonderful zoo seem to be preceded by 'The World Famous'; it is certainly a well deserved moniker.  We arrived near 10am, and the huge parking lot was almost full; the zoo itself, not so much, since it's absolutely gigantic and seems to be able to absorb huge numbers of visitors.   As with any crowded venue, there's a crush at the ticket office, but we can just walk by, one of many privileges of an annual membership.

Today we just walked over to the SkyTrain and while joining the small line-up [dozen people at most]  this majestic swan swam up to check us out.

At the top of the SkyTrain is where the polar bears are: yesterday they were hidden, today, in full view and quite playful.  

Here we have a shot with the twin, Sister on left, brother in middle and the girlfriend at the far right. While the dynamic trio is always interesting for Joan and me, the dynamics have temporarily changed at this time of year as the girlfriend is going through many, once a year, hormonal changes.

For quite a while, the two girls were having fun playing together in the pool, but in the picture below, the brother is seeking some privacy from the sister...

Unperturbed, she just went back into the pool and did some swimming on her back to amuse everyone.

Next is our hopeful couple, moving ponderously with great calculation, trying to please and not offend; ah, the trials and tribulations of courtship.

Not far away, we arrived at the elephant acreage, a large area for very large and powerful animals.

This Asiatic Elephant is just resting his head and trunk on a tailor-made big rock.

Nearby we saw this lovely Jaguar, interested in the workmen just a few feet from the fence.

Further along the same path, we found this pair of Secretary birds.  One quite interested in the reflection in my lens,

... the other one preening after a bad hair day.

Next was an enclosure with three very large Condors, this one taking flight across their 'cage'.  Good but short flight, no soaring space available.

An nearer the zoo exit, this curious little meerkat, sunning himself while all the others were busy digging new tunnels everywhere.

The greatest benefit of membership, is that we can go for a short visit and return home for lunch; no need to walk until you drop, no need to see everything at one visit.

Probably the best reason for this zoo's reputation is the fact that they have a great conservation program, and strive to breed endangered animals so they can be returned to their native habitat when the climate for their survival is improved.  Their success rate is apparently very good.

I hope you'll join us, as we go back to the zoo for many more visits!