The Living Desert, Birds.

 The birds at Living Desert are housed in aviaries, huge net enclosed area's which the public can enter through an air lock type of system. The bird above is a Turkey Vulture.

Glossy Ibis, watching this bird was very interesting it would swop legs and have a look around and then hide its beak in amongst its feathers, just managed to catch it before beak and head disappeared. 

Snowy Egret

A couple of Black Crowned Night Herons.

Catching these fellows are a real challenge, they move so fast. In the 3 weeks we have been here I must have taken at least 50 pics of these Road Runners, the one above is the first half decent pic,  all the others a like the one below, just a blur.

Great-tailed or Mexican Grackle.

Great Blue Heron

 

Yellow Billed Storks, these were in the African part of the the park.

East African Grey Crowned Crane. 

I have no idea what these 2 ducks and the super looking bird below are, good looking though.

The Living Desert, plants & animals.

 

A visit to The Living Desert Gardens and Wildlife Park.

 This is a desert garden at its best, this part is the California Desert, its broken up to show all the different deserts in the world and their birds, animals and plants.

 

Coral Fountain or the Humming Bird plant

 A Badger, all the time we were watching this animal, it spent most of the time rolling around in the sand, digging a hole and rolling in it.  A European Badger is darker, but as this one spends most of its time in sand its pretty well camouflaged.

Well they do look like pigs.

                                                                             

                                                                                 

 A Mexican Wolf, what a magnificent looking animal, though you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of it, thats for sure.

 

Long Horned Sheep

 These have got to be just the cutest animals in the world, from The Kalihari Desert in South West Africa - Meerkats.

 The garden part blending in with the natural desert.

 A couple more Long Horned Sheep

 

Heck I'm hungry, how much longer have I got to stand here posing for all the these funny looking people?

1000 Palms Canyon

A very pleasant walk through the 1000 palms Canyon along the McCallum Trail to The McCallum Pond at the end and back again to the main Oasis at Thousand Palms. Its not really a hike, a gentle stroll would be a better description, a little over 3km. but as it was our first walk since leaving Victoria  the length was just right to get us into the walking habit again.

                                               Nice resting/picnic place amongst the Fan Palms

 Part of the walk over The San Andreas Fault on boardwalk, water underneath which has been forced up by the volcanic forces and of course the water creates the oasis.

 The trail emerging into the open, those fan palms are really affective in reducing the temperature, natures own air conditioning.

These 2 shots show The San Andreas Fault, according to the information centre this is the most visible earthquake fault in the world, this cliff is not rock its just sand, gravel and loose rock pushed up from the earth below.

McCallum Pond, formed by water seeping up from The San Andreas Fault.

Lovely light on a palm fond hanging over the pond.

Looking across the pond to the little picnic place where we had our lunch.

                                                                               

 

great sky.  

 Having a bit of a rest on the way back.