When we left our heroine, she was..oh sorry wrong story.
I believe I had just recognized the other entrance as the one that I had taken the first time I explored the Franklin Park Zoo. Since I had arrived from the right side I followed the path to the left to circle back around to the start at the Zebra entrance. This took me by the hyenas enclosure but I didn’t see any. It was getting very warm and a little humid so maybe they were sleeping. I moved on.
Next up was a Baird’s tapir. This was larger than I expected. I guess since they are related I was expecting something more along the size of the little javalina’s like I saw in Arizona back in ’08. This was much bigger than that! It was just patrolling the perimeter fence.
At the top of the hill was another snack bar area but it was closed. Seems to me it was closed when I last visited too.
Turning the corner I passed the camels in the same place I remembered them from before.
A bit farther on was the lion enclosure.
I searched around that exhibit for quite a while before I finally spotted “Christopher”, the African Lion. He was stretched out in the shade in a corner of his enclosure. I wanted to get a picture but the only angle was through the glass window and there were loads of other Zoo Visitors in the way. I commented that he was alone and one of the other visitors said that a couple of years ago they introduced a female lion and he killed it. Then they had another male lion in there for a while. No one seemed to know what happened with that but Christopher was back being alone and that’s the way he seems to like it.
Around the corner from the Lion’s Den was the tiger enclosure. These big cats were also hiding in the shady areas out of camera range. I spotted 2, one was a white tiger and the other was an orange cat. The only reason I saw the white tiger was because his huge tail kept flipping up and back down almost like it was in rhythm. The rest of him was hidden in the underbrush.
And then I was back at the Carousel with the giraffe on my right and the Serengeti Crossing on my left. Somehow I missed the gorillas, the lemurs and the new Giant Anteater Exhibit. The zoo was closing at 5pm and rush hour was well underway so I felt that it was more prudent to wrap up for the day than to go looking for the missed exhibits. After all, I can always come back for another visit.
I had a great time anyway. I really loved the Aussie Aviary with the Budgies aka parakeets. I could spend my whole day there.