San Diego Zoo

I snapped a few pics at the San Diego Zoo the other day. It was a fine day to take advantage of the zoo pass and check out the newly opened Elephant Odyssey exhibits.

There was an archeologist's tar pit exhibit where eerie music played in the background. The dark water, mimicking natural tar, levels would fall and reveal a collection of ancient bones lying underneath.

A couple of Columbian mammoth statues and other ancient animal statues were fun for kids' interaction.

This almost looks like an enclosure setup for Jurassic Park, except the creature models in this exhibit only go back 12,000 years ago. And, of course, the live animals in this enclosure will probably include giraffes or more elephants.

This Teratorn statue looks quite sinister with a bit of HDR photography added. This old "thunderbird" was very, very big!

Red Flowered Cactus

This cactus put on a show today with several red flowers.

I wonder why it is so difficult to take pictures of very red things?

Last year, this plant was infested with tiny, white mealy bugs. I noticed the bugs before, but they usually come and go on their own. Several months ago, though, I took the time to manually remove them with a pair of tweezers. I guess my work paid off as this seems to have resulted in more blooms this time.

This other pot of the same cactus was growing, neglected, underneath the shade of some bushes. The plant seems to have grown longer in its search for more sunlight. And, the flower blooms are going to happen much later than the other plant.

Bird House

I picked up a Wren House Kit at The Birdwatcher store in the town of Julian today. It was $1 less for the kit than the pre-assembled house.

It was so easy to put together.

Up in the pine tree the bird house goes.