The boys' big Christmas present from us this year was a behind-the-scenes tour at the Houston Zoo. We are lucky that our kids have very generous grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents who shower them all kinds of wonderful toys, books, and games, so we decided that our big gift this year would be an experience rather than another toy.
A few years ago, Gene was at a gala and "won" a giraffe feeding at the zoo, which was so much fun that we have talked about it ever since. Henry was too little to even remember it, and Will's memories are pretty vague, but it was an incredible experience for all of us and we wanted to go back to the zoo for another behind-the-scenes tour. This time, I chose the Children's Zoo Coastal Exhibits experience, which meant we got to feed the pelican and river otter. The zookeeper had one more surprise for us at the end of the tour that even our guide didn't know about!
We started off our tour at the red panda exhibit. The male was out marking his territory and we found out that he is especially active right now because it is breeding season for red pandas and they are hoping for a baby this summer! Our guide let us touch a red panda pelt and skull. On our way to the Children's Zoo, we learned all kinds of interesting facts about animals at the zoo. For example, did you know that Jonathan the lion was raised with a tiger pup, didn't know how to be the alpha male, and is declawed? We also learned that the zoo's Chilean flamingos never bred until this fall when they were introduced into their newly renovated habitat. Fascinating!
This is Ariel the river otter. She is 3 years old and is at the zoo because she was domesticated as a pup and then let loose in the wild, and she tried to jump into a park ranger's truck in Florida. They decided it was no good to have a river otter trying to jump into cars so now she is at the zoo (but only for another month before she heads off to become part of a breeding program at another zoo!).
We started off feeding Ariel some "otter crunchies." She mostly eats fish and shellfish but the otter crunchies are her afternoon snack. She was so excited to see zookeeper David arrive with her treats!
We all tossed the otter crunchies over the partition and she gobbled them up!
Next the boys got to feed Walter, the pelican. He is fairly skittish, so the zookeeper took the boys in one at a time to toss fish to him.
Walter is at the zoo because of injuries.
Bye, Walter!
Will's contemplating his fishy gloves after the feeding.
We thought the tour was over after feeding Walter, but the zookeeper had one more stop for us. It wasn't advertised at all, and apparently not everyone gets to go back to see Apollo (his last visitors were the zoo's board members!), so this was an extra-special treat. The boys were incredibly well-behaved and followed all of the zookeeper's instructions, so we credit their good behavior for the extra perk.
Apollo is the zoo's male bald eagle. We love stopping and visiting Liberty, the female eagle, when we go to the zoo, but we didn't even know they had a male eagle too! Apollo is from Virginia and has been at the zoo for two years. Like Walter, he sustained injuries (broken leg and wing, I believe) and can no longer fly or survive in the wild. Isn't he beautiful?
Apollo is very nervous around people, so we stayed pretty far back, but we got to see him eat mice. It turns out that mice are his favorite food, even though bald eagles eat mainly fish in the wild.
Visiting Apollo was extra-special because eagles are one of our favorite birds. Henry studied eagles this year at school when they learned about America's symbols and we also took at class at the arboretum about eagles just last month. When I told Henry about the tour of the Children's Zoo, his first question was if it would involve the bald eagle. What a fantastic surprise that it did!
Our behind-the-scenes tour at the zoo was a phenomenal experience and one that we will definitely repeat.
