Really Florida!

There were quite a few feathered friends at Lion Country Safari in Florida. Here are some that we saw on our trip to this South Florida attraction.

(You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.)

The ostriches were the first we saw, just as we drove into the safari section. I thought this would make for an interesting photo, with both birds’ heads down, but in opposite directions. There were quite a few all around the safari section of the park.

While there were a few other birds in the safari tour section of the park, most were too far away or moving too fast to catch a good photo. That changed when we got to the amusement park part of Lion Country Safari.

There were quite a few birds that we could see quite close in the amusement park. This wood stork was perched right on the fence beside the walkway. There were two, but I decided to get the closeup of the one. He/she was remarkably unaffected by the passer-bys and just did his/her stork thing.

Next, and right near the wood stork was the marabou stork (at least that’s what I think it’s called). It’s a funny-looking bird with a pouch or bladder (or something) below its beak. I’m thinking an air bladder of some sort.

This is a pretty big bird — I’d say around 3 feet tall. Another bird who didn’t seem to notice the crowds.

We wandered around the Lion Country Safari amusement park for awhile when we saw the Lorikeet Feeding area. You could buy little containers of nectar, hold it in your hand and the ‘keet would sit on your hand and eagerly guzzle down the nectar.

The lorikeets are pretty birds, very brightly colored and sociable. In a way, they make me thing about beach-goers in Florida — wearing bright colors that you’d not normally wear any other place but at the beach. The lorys are farily small birds — bigger than a cockatiel but smaller than a small parrot.

The one bird found just about everywhere at Lion Country is the white ibis. I hear that this bird is endangered, but you’d never guess by the number you see roaming the park. For that matter, the number roaming all around South Florida! I didn’t get any pictures of the ibises — they were too busy searching the ground for bird food or other food scraps and didn’t stand still long enough for a photo.