Sunday, January 27, 2013

Visiting Sea World

On our Winter break, my mom, dad, siblings and I went for a visit to San Diego. It took us about 135 miles to arrive at San Diego. We spent three days there. On the first day, we went to Safari Park and on the second day we went to Sea World. The last day we started to head north to our home, and we stopped in La Jolla to see seals and look at the beautiful galleries.





Sea World was one of my favorite because of its unique animals and numerous shows. When we arrived at Sea World, we were greeted by flamingos. They were walking around the park greeting all the visitors.














At Sea World, we went to 3 different shows. The first show was the dolphin show. The dolphins were Bottle Nosed Dolphins, because their mouth looks like a bottle. It is one of the most familiar species of dolphins. In that show there were also parrots and whales. Parrots can live more than 80 years, depending on the species. Parrots are easily trained and capable of performing many variety of tricks and sounds. During the show, the dolphins did many tricks such as jumping out of the water, pulling their trainers across the pool, and splashing the crowd. In the photo below, the dolphin is clapping with his fins.






The second show, was my favorite. It was on killer whales and called the Shamu Show. Killer whales are large and fierce hunters and are one of the main predators of the ocean. Killer whales live in all oceans in the world. You would most likely see a killer whale in the arctic and other cold areas.  During the show, the killer whales favorite thing to do was splash the crowd. If you were siting in the soak zone you got soaked. The whales went around the whole pool splashing everyone. I'm glad we didn't sit in soak zone because it was already cold, and we didn't have an extra pair of clothes.

Whales clapping with the audience.












Whales kissing
























Whale splashing












Whale opening its mouth for fish. He had many rows of sharp teeth.

























The last show we attended  was the seal and sea otter show. It was hilarious. The show was about a little sea otter that takes Santa's good and naughty list because he was on the naughty list. The seal was looking for it with the Santa's helper. During the show, the seals did many tricks such as balance a ball on his nose and do many different jumps and flips.

Seal doing a flip out of the water.
Seal balancing a ball on his nose.

In addition to seeing shows, we also went to a couple of different exhibits. The shark exhibit was my favorite. We were in a see through tunnel and when you looked up and to the side you saw all difrent kinds of sharks. There were large sharks, small sharks, and some with huge teeth. I am glad we were behind the glass.



Shark swimming above us. The shark bit off a piece of our photo!


The penguins were also very cute. Penguins are birds, but they are different from the birds we see outside. They can not fly, but they use there wings as flippers and can swim very fast. It was a little sad to see so many penguins in one exhibit and barely any room for all of them to fit. 









Which animal was your favorite?

Have you ever been to Sea World or a similar type of place?








Thursday, January 10, 2013

A Visit to the Zoo

A few weeks ago we went to the Los Angeles Zoo and saw many animals such as seals, alligators, deer, reptiles, giraffes, gorillas and chimpanzees.We also visited a reptile exhibit. It was recently built, and it was our first time seeing it. The exhibit had all types of reptiles such as poisonous snakes, turtles, and lizards. I took photos of some of my favorite animals.




 The American alligator is found in fresh and slightly salty waters in the Southeastern United States.   They eat almost anything found in the water, such as crabs, fish, frogs, snakes, birds, and small mammals such as raccoons. This alligator's teeth were huge and scary.


The American black bears lives in numerous forests throughout North America and is found in 41 of the 50 United States.They eat grasses, fruits, berries, nuts, insects, human foods, and occasionally small animals. They weigh approximately 150-600 pounds. This bear was just sleeping at the opening of it's cave.



If a Meerkat gets bitten by a scorpion or snake it doesn't get affected. Their burrow can  have multiple levels, which can be as deep as ten feet with up to 90 entrances. These animals were very active and look like people standing on two feet. They were putting a show for the crowd.






Flamingos usually stand on just one leg, even while sleeping, with the other up close to their body. These birds eat small shrimp, worms, insect, and plants. They receive their pink color from the natural things they find in the foods they eat. When we came to the exhibit, it smelled terribly, so we just took the photo and moved on to a different exhibit.


This turtle’s other common name is pig nosed because of its nostrils. I've seen many turtles laying on a rocks on The Big Island in Hawaii. This turtle is a different specie from the ones we saw in Hawaii.


Gorillas are the strongest and largest of the great apes. All gorillas in U.S. zoos are western lowland gorillas. They eat various parts of plants including leaves, bark, vines,stalks, bamboo, and wild celery. They weigh 350 pounds, and have long sharp teeth. This gorilla was laying around his large home.


This is a Grevy Zebra. It's most important adaptation for its survival is its stripes because they confuse predators. The Grevy is the largest of all the zebras. The males are five feet tall and weigh as much as 900 pounds. This zebra was very active throwing dust all over the place!
three Grevy Zebras


Orangutans are the only surviving great apes in Asia.  They act like humans in there behavior. Orangutans spend most of there time looking through trees for fruit. They also eat flowers, young leaves, bark, and eggs. In the Malay language, the word orang means person and utan means forest. This Orangutang was very furry and had two largefront teeth. He was orange/brown and had chubby cheeks.


A tiger’s tracks are called “pug marks.” Tigers get up at dusk,and may travel more than twenty miles to find food. These tigers were only sleeping and were very boring to look at, so we took the photo and moved on to the next animal.




Do you ever visit the zoo?
What is your favorite animal and why?
What interesting facts do you know about your favorite animal?