Birch Aquarium

 In keeping with our animal theme for this trip we spent a day at the Birch Aquarium which is north of San Diego, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

There are pluses and minuses in photographing at aquariums, you almost always shooting thru glass (hopefully clean) but lots of colorful animals and varying but interesting backgrounds.

Cleaning the glass, on the inside of the tank.

The view from the deck on the back of the aquarium.

Safari Park - giraffes

 My favorite part of the safari was the giraffes, they are such beautiful animals and the park herd included several babies and juveniles.

Safari Park - safari

 We had taken one of these safaris last time we were in San Diego many many years ago. Back then they let you feed some of the animals which was the highlight of the trip. That stopped during the covid years and the park found that once the animals stopped following the trucks to eat they spent more of their time with each and the park had a baby boom, so they decided to keep the ban on hand feeding.

This one young animal decided the best way to eat was to just climb right into the feeding trough.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

 The San Diego Zoo also owns the Safari Park which is about an hour north east of San Diego. The park has a normal type zoo at the front with the rest holding large areas where multiple types of animals live. The fun way to visit part of the park is taking safari through the enclosures in the back of an open air "safari truck".

From the front of the park you can see the safari trucks driving thru the enclosures.

They have a open air stadium where they hold a bird in flight show. As much as I tried I could never get an in-focus shot of any of the bird flying so I had to settle for when they landed and looked around.