A while back I had the opportunity to take just Alex and Katya out for a few hours. I can’t remember exactly why Lyana and Mark stayed home, but that’s not the point.
It’s rare I get to spend time out with just the older two chilluns, so we wanted to do something different. Not far from where we live is the “Raptor Foundation” where they care for all different kinds of large birds of prey, and everyday there’s a flight show that lasts about an hour. But we didn’t go to see the birds. We went to see the reptiles. Yup, the reptiles . . . and the meerkats, of course.
At the “Raptor Foundation” you have the option of seeing the raptors OR you can choose to see the meerkats and reptiles. There’s also a combo package so you can do both, but with our time limit (less than two hours) we just went for the one.
MEERKATS!! Yes, those furry, little creatures that have won the hearts of many through their own reality TV show. I’m still not sure why they have meerkats at the raptor foundation, but as I’m typing this I’m starting to wonder what they feed the biggest birds . . .
The reptiles are all kept inside one small building. Unlike regular zoos, the owner here is not afraid to take the snakes out of their terrariums. We didn’t get a chance to hold this massive snake, but our opportunity came soon enough. Keep reading.
The story goes that the owner (the guy with the snake in the picture above) just kept acquiring reptiles as pets, and eventually he got so many, he built this place to house them all. Mostly he acquires animals (including the raptors) through rescue missions. They say Hedwig was here too.
They didn’t take this guy out of his box.
But they did take this guy out and tried to get a lady to open up her hand and hold it. She refused and I backed away so they wouldn’t ask me next. Not a fan.
Here’s the darn meerkats again. They just pop up everywhere. Part of their enclosure extended inside the reptile building, so we could watch them play as we moved from snake to scorpion to turtles.
Ah, speaking of turtles. It’s the guy from Wonder Pets! (don’t ask me how I know that).
Okay, grossness. No these are not cut-up insects. These are actually their exoskeletons which they have shed. Still gross. Quickly scroll on to the next picture and try to put this one out of your mind (I put this in for all the Alexes out there).
There’re the two huge pythons again. They said these snake needed a break, so they couldn’t take them out for us yet.
But, the worker said we could hold the ball python (also known as a royal python). Surprise number one: Katya was not scared to hold the snake.
Surprise number two: neither was Alex. Not surprising: As Alex is holding the snake, he’s reciting little-known facts (i.e. where does he come up this stuff?) about snakes to the worker.
This is why they call it a “ball” python. It curls up into a ball and you can hold it in the palm of your hand.
But he was actually quite long, as the kids discovered while they attempted to stretch him out.
Arrgh, the meerkats again. I knew you wanted to have one last look at them.
Mark was sad that he missed it. Next time we’ll take him along (and go to see the raptors too).
Rob
No comments:
Post a Comment