19 March 2006

Brookgreen Gardens Zoo

On the 15th we went back to Brookgreen Gardens to tour their zoo area. It was a nice day and we enjoyed walking through the area they have set up for the animals. The first place you walk through is one of the aviaries they have set up. It’s interesting to see the swampy area with the birds hiding out in the trees, and on the ground.

There was another walk-thru aviary that was supposed to have the raptors in it, but the only thing we saw where vultures. Those you see everywhere, these guys aren’t even a part of an exhibit, they just like it here. Before the walk-thru raptor aviary they had the birds that were supposed to be in there in individual cages. All these birds are from animal rescues and things like that. The bald eagles for instance, one is blind and the other is missing half of a wing. Same with the red-tailed hawks, they are birds that can never return to the wild. This redtail was showing us his pretty wings. One neat story about the hawks, they bred in captivity and their babies could be released into the wild.

We took a picture of this guy because they have a habitat set up for Alligators in their Zoo, we did see one way back in the back, but only saw his tail, it was still impressive, he/she was a big one. Other than that we only saw signs warning us about the alligators. Hi’iaka (the hula girl) wants to remind everyone to think of safety first in foreign areas. I was continually looking over my shoulder while Bill snapped this picture, he thought I was running away once he was done, but I was really skipping over a hole in the ground…I swear!

The Gardens are beautiful and the Zoo area is pretty neat. Brookgreen Gardens is a great place to visit if you are ever in the area. It costs $12.00 a person, but your tickets are good for 7 days and you can go back as many times in that 7 days as you want. You’ll definitely want more than one day to see everything.

;-)K