My Birthday at the Buffalo Zoo!

When Warren asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I asked to go to the Buffalo Zoo which I hadn't been to in probably 30 years! After seeing so many beautiful animals in the wild in Africa, it was hard to see animals caged in zoos when I came back. I would like to say that the past few years have brought about astonishing changes in our zoos -- these animals looked so robust and healthy and better than the ones I had seen on the African plains. It is clear that the keepers really care about their environment. The Zoo was much different than it was thirty years ago -- there are so many flowers and plant life growing everywhere.

As the weather was supposed to get bad, we left early in the morning, figuring on breakfast on the way. (Whoever heard of a Burger King running out of biscuits at breakfast so the breakfast never happened.) (I might add that he also presented me with a huge flat screen tv for the bedroom and my daughter got me dvr service for a year!) My other daughter sent me lovely pictures of Amelia!

The above are scarlet ibis which are native to South America but which do appear down in Ft. Myers occasionally but I haven't seen one yet. I have seen about every other variety of ibis however and even see the white ones in large numbers by the beach house in NC.

The polar bears are always my favorites! One was swimming on her back one way and then doing the crawl coming back down the pool!

This was in the tropical rainforest exhibit which is always a favorite of both Warren and I at various zoos (like Central Park). I love color!!

There were day lilies everywhere and these were particularly striking as well as some double orange ones that I had never seen before.

This is the naughty lorikeet that took a small chunk out of my finger! He was supposed to eat the nectar, not my finger!

Another of the lorikeets that is more well behaved and eating out of my hand.

These morning glories were about five inches across and looked more like mallows than morning glories!

Looks like these zebras just had a bath -- how is that for line work!

This is an Asian elephant which is the kind you see people riding and in circuses. African elephants are much bigger and have huge ears and are definitely can't be trained like the Asian ones.

Again, beautiful colorwork on this mandrill!

The big horned sheep we saw at Glacier by the road were nowhere near as robust as the ones here in the zoo!!!

This guy was just fascinating. He is an anteater and the front end looks more like the back end. They are about five feet end to end.