As I recently wrote, I became a Living Desert Zoo member due to the ridiculously cute bobcat kittens that kept showing up on my Facebook feed. Between my wife and I, we've now had five separate entries into the zoo, meaning the membership has now "paid for itself." Regular entry is $40, and the dual annual membership was $180.
Of course, While I still spent possibly the majority of my time at the bobcat kitten exhibit, I have been elsewhere. I was considering posting some of my other animal views from the previous trips, and may still do so. But, in the meantime, here are my shots (well, a small portion of my shots) from last weekend.
Prior to the arrival of the bobcats, my favorite place in the zoo was the giraffe exhibit. It's a relatively large enclosure of rolling grasslands, with the back fence hidden beyond the hill, so it creates a very expansive appearance. Many giraffe wander the area (though, on a hot summer day, they mostly stayed in the shade of one of the trees!), and, for those so inclined, for $10 ($8 for members), you can feed a few leaves of romaine lettuce to them.
There's also a few greater kudu (very large horns!), which I guess I haven't uploaded a photo of this year, but I have, in the past). Ostriches are also supposed to be in there, but I have not seen any the past few visits. Not sure if they've been relocated, or they are just sleeping somewhere hidden from view.
The other "recently" opened exhibit at the Living Desert is for the rhinoceros, two of which arrived in October 2021. They also have a moderately large area to wander, except it's divided in half under the bridge, to keep the male and female rhinoceros apart. On a hot summer day, they were just laying flat in the mud under the bridge, so not very photogenic.
In addition to the large, horned creatures, there are smaller horned creatures (springbok and water bucks), and numerous birds in the shared habitat.
The zoo grounds are planted with desert flora from around the world, some of which are, of course, native to the area. That apparently draws quite a bit of the local fauna into the area. Here's a hummingbird I saw in a tree. I've also seen plenty of rabbits. So, apparently, bobcats, coyotes, and foxes also visit, daily.
Another nifty exhibit area is called, "Bighorn Mountain." It's a rocky hill where desert bighorn are enclosed. Because it's a hill, however, a lot more of the fencing is visible, so it doesn't quite look as expansive as the giraffe habitat. Still, pretty cool to be able to see them in a quasi-natural setting.
Not far from Bighorn Mountain is an area with various birds, and, behind the birds, up a little hill, a jaguar lives. On this visit, he was laying down in the back, partially hidden by an ocotillo. This shot is cropped pretty severely. He looked right at me at times (I had an ice-filled insulated waterbottle, which probably made an unfamiliar noise that caught his or her attention), then went back to sleep, because what else can he do?
Just below the jaguar was a set of divided bird enclosures, most of which were owls. Here's a burrowing owl.
I forget the name of the next owl, but he was also very small. The larger barn owl was not in a photographable location.
After the owls, all the other shots here are from the "Eagle Mountain" area of the Living Desert.
As you might guess, there actually is an eagle enclosure in this area. It included a golden eagle and a bald eagle, which I did not photograph. Apparently, they are not so territorial, and seem to leave each other alone.
In addition to the eagle enclosure, there's also an aviary (meaning an exhibit where you can walk where the birds can fly), with numerous water-related bird species. I included a shot of a very picturesque great white egret, and a sleepy night heron.
The largest of the Eagle Mountain residents are probably the mountain lions. Every time I've visited so far, the two cougars have been sprawled out on a "ledge," sleeping. I'm sure they don't like the heat.
The shot I included below is a crop of a shot that had the pair of them on the ledge. Cuter with the upside-down head, looking at me, and cropped enough to make the cougar apparent.
Not included here are photos of the badger, "Jedi." He apparently is a new resident, and spent most of the time I was there just pacing back and forth around his enclosure. He seemed unhappy, and they say it's 'cause he's new. However, when I see the coyotes (outside exhibit), they also spend most of the time just pacing around.
Right next door to the bobcat kittens are a couple of fox exhibits. There's a Channel Island fox, which I have not seen on my visits. Then there's a kit fox, who apparently is also a new arrival. He's in the process of being "trained," by which they mean hand feeding. I guess they want them habituated to go to a specific place for meal time, so they can be easily checked out, weighed, etc.
After Mr. Fox, all the remaining shots are a small proportion of the many bobcat kitten shots I took.
It's been three and four weeks since my previous visits. David (the greyer one), in particular, looks to be putting on weight. But they are still very playful, and the smaller, redder one (JoAnn) appears to be the instigator, chasing David more than he chases her.
Happily, they still play, playfully. There's no "hissing" (I don't know if bobcats hiss) or yelling. Just a lot of pouncing and ambushes, and soft bites and licks.
My own cats, by contrast, have different levels of playfulness, and one seems to get pretty picked on by the other, and there is hissing and yelling and running away. But they're not siblings and they didn't grow up, together. Hopefully, David and Joann will continue to get along well with each other.
In looking at these pictures, neither has much of a tuft on their ears, but JoAnn, even less so than David. Joann just looks like a cat, from the front!
By contrast, you can see a bit of a point of hair coming off the top of David's ears, as in the picture to the left.
That makes me think that the picture immediately below is of JoAnn, as is the second vertical picture, below, and the last one (the other shots are of the two of them).
From the side or back, JoAnn remains distinctly redder and smaller, so it's easy to tell them apart when they're near each other and you can see their sides and backs.
Here, and in the second and third pictures from the end, with the two "side by side," the difference is pretty apparent.
BTW, the tree the little tree that they crawl all over has definitely thinned out in foliage over the past month. They're hard on that tree!
I love their ears, from behind. It's like they have extra eyes on the back of their heads. I wonder if that's the "intent" behind the coloration?
It's only been three visits for me, so I'm still learning something about the exhibits. I'm just learning which nooks, if a kitten goes into, lead to a viewing window to the left of the main viewing area. But there are still nooks and crannies they can hop up to where you can't see them from the front. They are energetic, and light enough to climb all over the place. As a matter of fact, the rambunctiousness of the kittens led to some tree trimming and a cover net on the top of the exhibit space, to make sure they didn't get out.
Other than the nooks and crannies, the kittens also like looking out the back of their enclosure. I'm pretty sure that's looking into a restricted area, but it gives them a view of the outside. I expect birds and animals fly or walk by at all hours.
That's also where their food comes from, so they are attentive to noises from that direction.
My next astronomy outreach at Sky's the Limit won't be until at least September 20, so the kittens will be quite a bit larger by my next visit.
I know I've got other hikes I haven't blogged, yet, but I still need to organize those pictures. I also plan a short trip into the Owens Valley and up around Cedar Breaks in the next month, so I may likely wind up blogging those, next.
