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.

San Diego Zoo too

 

A humming bird we watched while we were sitting on a bench taking a break.

San Diego Zoo is great to photographs, most of the enclosures let you photograph without going thru glass or fences. This a pose I've taken of my son multiple times, either hand in front of face or tongue out, his way of saying "enough photos dad".

Growing up I loved reptiles and amphibians so the Reptile House is always one of my favorites at any zoo. This one was pretty good because most of the glass was nice and clean, perfect for good photos.

You might have noticed no Panda Bears which are a huge draw at San Diego, the line see them was so long we skipped it since we've seen them before.

San Diego Zoo

 In February 2026 we took a trip to San Diego just to hang out and visit animal related places, starting with the Zoo.

This is our second trip to the Zoo, the first was maybe 15 years ago.

I love shooting birds and Flamingos are wonderful to photograph, bright and colorful with huge yellow eyes.

This is as much of any of the hippos we saw out of the water.

Babies of any animals are so cute (except baby robins) but so hard to get photos off. I would swear these two were chatting, something like "ok, your turn, you look at the camera while I look away".

II watched them for quite a while and this was maybe the closest I came to catch both of them looking my way at the same time.

More Six Mile Slough

 

This otter was very camera shy and very fast. He swam around the pond and boardwalk eating fish but somehow always managed to be behind trees or bushes.

We finally saw a couple of alligators in one of the ponds.

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This woodpecker was on a tree about 10 feet from the boardwalk and we watched it for quite a while. My head started to hurt just listening to it hammering away at the tree.

We expected to see lots of birds, turtles, a few alligators but we were very surprised when starring into the woods to see a bobcat and racoon having a starring match just a few feet away from each other.