Butterfly Jungle

My hubby and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary recently. We never do cards or gifts but opt instead for a special trip or outing. Before J was born it used to be a weekend trip to Vegas, but now we like going somewhere all three of us can enjoy together. It worked out perfectly that the San Diego Safari Park’s annual Butterfly Jungle exhibit was in full swing. We have taken J to this every year since her birth and we decided it would be a wonderful anniversary day special trip. Thankfully, hubby got the day off from work and we spent a rare weekday at the park. It was fantastic, as all the schools were back in session from spring break. The butterfly exhibit was very quiet in comparison to the long lines and packed house that we usually fight through.  We even got a really close parking spot…win, win, win! In preparation for our visit, J and I started a butterfly lapbook. We studied three of her favorite butterflies, the Blue Morpho, Orange Julia, and Giant Owl. Before our trip she was able to read their names and identify them by sight. So imagine her delight when we walked into the atrium and all of these glorious butterflies were fluttering around her. I think she was astounded! We have worked on this book the whole month of April and I’m planning a separate post all about it.

  Butterfly Jungle is a photographer’s paradise! I was so happy to have my new camera there to use this year!

Great Orange Tip

Blue Morpho

Blue Morpho

Blue Morpho

Orange Julia

Orange Julia

J’s absolute favorite butterfly is the Orange Julia and she wanted one to land on her more than anything. It took some waiting (around 40 minutes) and patience…two things that aren’t usually easy for a three year old…but we finally had success. The lovely little Julia perched on my daughter’s finger long enough for her to admire it’s delicate beauty and for mom and dad to snap plenty of photos!  And as it turns out one of those photos was selected as a winner in the park’s Butterfly Jungle Instagram contest! We won a cart safari for four! We have never done a cart tour before so we were especially excited by this. We are hoping to take my sister and brother in law and their little boy. Since we are all homeschoolers, I believe this will be a superb field trip! Many thanks again to the Safari Park for choosing our photo. We are so grateful!

San Diego Safari Park 3-10-13

Our visit to the Safari Park this week was pretty exciting! We weren’t even sure we were going until the evening before, which is kind of unusual for us…you know spontaneity and all! I usually like to prep for a couple of days, because I pack the three of us a lunch that is pretty much all from scratch and  I had that darned daylight savings  time change to deal with. I woke up at 9 am, thinking I had already overslept…until Hubby reminded me it was really 10!  Not the greatest start, but I used my supermom powers and somehow got us all fed, dressed, packed and out the door at a reasonable time. I even managed a homemade lunch and it was one of the best chicken salads I’ve ever made. I will try to remember the recipe to share here sometime. I believe that was my lesson that spontaneity vs over planning can be a good thing!

Back to the Safari Park…

What We Saw

Our first exciting encounter was the Elephant Keeper talk at the Tembo Stadium. We just happened to walk up as it was starting, and I’m glad we we did. This was a chance to see several of the elephants up close, including the newest baby elephant, Qinisa. I couldn’t believe how cute this baby was and my little girl, J was ecstatic watching her run around the enclosure. Heck, so was I! We also got to see the mother elephant, Swazi and another younger elephant.

Baby Qinisa

Mother Swazi

We learned that the adult elephants are all from Swaziland. The trainers use a whistle to alert them to do particular tasks. Swazi showed off her skills by ignoring a  glove tossed by her and then retrieving it on command. Keepers also believe Swazi may have weak eyesight, as she doesn’t always notice scuffles among the other elephants. We also learned that there is a definite hierarchy among the Herd, with Swazi being the dominate female. This gives little Qinisa a bit of an advantage, as her daughter, and apparently she knows it!

To see more of these beautiful and majestic elephants, you can watch them on the Elephant Cam courtesy of the Safari Park’s website.

We were also were excited to make it down to the African Outpost area for an Animal Encounter with Kusikia, the Bat Eared Fox. She is only around 9 months old and is in training for the encounters. She’s a little skittish during the presentation, but once she relaxes a bit she puts on quite a show, chasing her toys and cuddling with her keepers. Kusikia is adorable and we loved watching her up close.

We learned that Kusikia, as mentioned already, is still just a baby. She loves stuffed pandas and always has one in her enclosure to play with. The keepers mentioned that they are hopeful that Kusikia will become comfortable enough with people to one day be touched and pet during her Animal Encounters outings.

We are excited about our next visit to the park, since it is the opening weekend of Butterfly Jungle! It is a thrilling opportunity to walk among hundreds of live butterflies as they float and possibly land for a moment on you! The photo ops are overwhelming, so I hope to get a few interesting ones to share! The Safari Park is also holding several contests to celebrate Butterfly Jungle, so head over to their website for a chance to win a great prize and read more about this exciting event!