A pair of Fruit Doves
A sleepy iguana
A proud peacock
A basking rattlesnake
Some bright pink flamingos
And in our own backyard a sassy male Northern Cardinal
I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters
Here is our terrier mix rescue Sadie. Sweetest dog ever and she loves taking a nap in the sun after chasing rabbits and squirrels all over the back yard.
And a turtle I found crossing a trail at Ray Harral Nature Center in Broken Arrow, OK. Something about turtles, they are crossing everything from trails to freeways right now in Oklahoma.
A Komodo Dragon at the Tulsa Zoo.
A “tower” of Giraffes milling around at the zoo waiting to be fed. I love collective nouns of animals. Tower is new to me and might be my favorite. A murder of crows is pretty high up there also.
Fun fact: See the green pipe in the background. That is for the zoo’s elephant enclosure. It was donated to the zoo by one of my previous employers, ONEOK, Inc. It is brand new pipe with the green coating used for buried pipe to protect it from corrosion. The pipe and its coating costs a fortune.
A lone rhino picking through their hay.
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One of the great things about being retired is you really have a lot of time to do what you want to do. The other day I wanted to go to the zoo so I just went. The best time to go to the zoo is after school starts in the fall and during the week.
Notice the long line at the entrance. Not!! Zoo staff outnumbered visitors that day.
The first thing I did of course was go find a geocache. It involved the base of that rotating sculpture behind me. It was an earthcache so there were not a physical cache to find, I had to answer questions about the base. It took me a while but I think I got it.
And I passed by one of the pollinator gardens in the zoo. I spotted this Gulf Fritillary butterfly. What a beauty.
And this pipestone swallowtail.
And this hummingbird. I don’t know what kind and AI wasn’t sure. So if you know what kind it is please let me know in the comments. (Goes for any of the information in this post, let me know if I am wrong.)
From there I went to see the elephants. They are all Asiatic elephants. Elephants in zoos is very controversial. I get it.
And a komodo dragon.
And a kangaroo resting in the shade.
A pair of bald eagles.
A fuzzy photo of snow leopards chilling out.
An alligator floating in the water.
And a quartet of grey headed silverbills.
I took some short videos of other critters and then had my iphone stitch them together. The resulting clip is only 37 second long. Check it out if you have the time.
I loved my trip to the Tulsa Zoo. Do you like zoos? I love them.
I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.
We had a rainy cold weekend here in Tulsa. Heather was out of town and Logan was at his job and I wanted to get outside but the trails at Turkey Mountain are always a muddy mess after rain. I had recently been to a lot of my favorite haunts, Woodward Park, the Botannic Gardens, Oxley Nature Center, so I went to the Tulsa Zoo hoping that it wouldn’t be too rainy. And I lucked out, after a night of rain, it pretty much quit for the day by the time I got there.
This grizzly bear was kind of sad. It is beautiful. Look at that fur. It looks like it has been groomed. (I don’t know whether it is a he or a she.)
Breakfast though appears to be a sack of salad. I’d be nosing around in it myself thinking, “Are you kidding me!!”
Now, I’ve been to the classes and did the reading. Zoo staff take the diets of the critters very seriously and make sure to give them what they need. Grizzly sure looks depressed about it.
I found this critter. I had never seen it before. It is not a cute little kitty, it is a wild animal. Too bad my pic of its plaque is indecipherable!!
They have several bald eagles there. They always look so noble.
And the children’s zoo. Goats, goats at a children’s zoo are pains in the butt. They are cute but will steal the zoo map out of your back pocket in a heartbeat, and eat it.
A good zoo, and Tulsa has an excellent zoo, has great grounds to match, or complement the critters they harbor.
I found me a lizard, an iguana maybe, with a sardonic smile.
And some sort of ape with a sour outlook, but beautiful fur.
And I believe that this is a “Golden headed lion tamarin” and I think it is beautiful.
A lion looking very regal.
I loved my couple hours at the zoo. It was overcast and cold and that kept everybody away, which suited me. Just me, the staff, and the critters.
If you want to visit the Tulsa Zoo check out their website for all the info. They even have Zoo Yoga Thursdays at 6 pm. I’m interested, what about you?
Nice healthy double chin there!!
Saturday I ventured to Tulsa’s beautiful Mohawk Park to run in the Tulsa Zoo Run 10K. They also had a fun run and a 5K going on. I am increasing my mileage right now getting ready for the Tulsa Run 15K at the end of the month and I have my sights set on the Route 66 Half Marathon coming up in November.
The Zoo run benefits the Tulsa Zoo and has a bunch of sponsors.
It was kind of rainy and cloudy Saturday morning and the sun broke through just before the race started so we didn’t have to start in the rain. Mohawk is nice because it there are no hills so it easy to run hard.
We took off, I started as always toward the back and it took me about 30 seconds or so to get to the start line. The race kind of kicked my butt a little bit. I ran the whole way and I was under a lot of stress. The Kilometers seemed all kinds of spread out but I got into a rhythm after a while. Don’t get me wrong, I was ready for the race to end when it did.!!
This is a good race. The course was well marked and there was enough room for everybody. The first two loops just had one water stop and they had run out of water by the time I came around the second loop but they had two or three more water stops on the last couple miles to the finish line, so no complaint there.
At the finish they had medals. I don’t give a flip about medals but lots of people expect them, and they had them. They had lots of water and they had a plethora of food options from many of the sponsors. So that was good. No beer, but they had good coffee, which is a good tradeoff. They had lots and lots of stuff for the kids like facepainting and games. And of course you finish in the zoo so you get that for free!! I don’t know about you but I love zoos and Tulsa’s is great.
Plus the tshirts are nice and they had plenty of them. The only thing was the race timing. They published no results at the venue. They just said to check online. Well it has been over 24 hours and all I know is what my time was (and I knew that when I pushed the button on my watch when I finished.) No age group information or anything else. So I don’t know if that is due to what the Zoo wanted or the limitations of the timing company but this is totally unacceptable. This is the first race I have ever been to where they didn’t at least print out the results and tape them up. Sorry if I am stepping on toes, but that is the way I see it. So with no race results, there was no awards ceremony so I didn’t find out who the old guys were that buzzed past me nor the young kids who lapped me during the loops. Not having an awards ceremony is a gap.
So, race experience, course, preparation, water, food, tshirt, and fun? Check, check, check, check, check, check, check!! Timing, half a check. It is a great race, and I’ll be back. Hopefully they will square way the timing issues. If not, I’ll still be back!
A race like this doesn’t get done without a lot of work by a lot of people. Thank you to the Zoo and their staff, the many sponsors, the army of volunteers who helped with parking, the water stops, all the food, and managing the course, the Tulsa Police Department, and anybody else associated with the race, including my fellow participants who made it fun.
I am linking with Our World Tuesday!
I don’t know about you but we really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year (we do every year) we had a lot smaller group than usual but we did just fine. Uncle Bob drove up from Corpus Christi and the world’s greatest MIL hosted the dinner. We enjoyed fine food and fellowship most of the day.
The next day is the notorious Black Friday where everybody gets up terribly early and stands in line to trample their fellow humans to get half price televisions and laptops and such. Not us, we slept in. We had a guy trip to the Tulsa Zoo. No standing in lines there, easy parking, and friendly people!! I hope you enjoyed your shopping, we enjoyed our nonshopping.
The first critter we ran into was this grizzly. He doesn’t look too happy in there all by himself.
Next was this rattlesnake all coiled up and ready to strike. I don’t know much about rattlesnakes but I’m wondering if this is kind of an old guy judging by his filmy eyes. He might just be confused. I do geocaching and trail running and am always concerned about running into snakes. It seems we have more copperheads than rattlesnakes but I’m cautious nonetheless.
And an American Bald Eagle. They sure do look noble.
And a pair of American Albino Alligators. This dude is in serious need of some orthodontics.
And a Scarlet Ibis.
And a pic of son.
And a Golden Headed Lion Tamarin. He doesn’t look happy either.
And the flamingos are always cool and elegant.
The Rhino was up and doing this thing.
And the giraffes were reaching for their lunch.
And the elephants were having their meal as well.
I tried to see if the Zoo wanted this guy for the chimp exhibit. Nope, he eats too much he says.
There is a big construction project going on at the zoo. The Tulsa Zoo Lost Kingdom is going to be a huge addition with enhanced habitat for many of the critters. It is going to be finished sometime next year.
A good time was had by all. We celebrated Brother Bob’s birthday and so we had another excuse to eat well!!
I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving and a pleasant Black Friday. We sure did.
River Otter, just out of the water, at the Tulsa Zoo. They are found throughout North America. More information at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. I just know they are fun to watch.
Heather and I went to the Zoo Friday thinking that it wouldn’t be too crowded. Wrong! Every school in Oklahoma it seems was having a field trip there. The kids were here there and everywhere. We came upon this Rhino ignoring it all. He does look sad though.