Monday May 6 (Lion Country Safari, Loxahatchee)

We had a lovely day today at the drive through Lion Country Safari at Loxahatchee, FL.

We arrived just as it was due to open and there were not many cars in the queues. The weather was sunny and warm, at one stage it was 104 F outside the car, lol!

The park is set up in seven different areas named after famous parks/reserves around the world, eg Serengeti, Kalahari and so on. My favourite area was the Gorongosa Reserve and the lions! 

This morning they were very active, The male and two older females were in one fenced off area while we saw two of the three younger females running around in their area. The male let everyone know he was around by roaring several times.

The White Rhinoceros were very docile, thank goodness! We saw Eland, Zebra, Impala, Ostrich, Kudu to name a few. 

There are Brown Pelicans on an island and they have all been injured, so this is their sanctuary. There were a lot of Impala calves, most of them were stlll nursing! 

At one point we saw one of the workers out of his vehicle, he was using a leaf blower to clear an area. 

We were quite confused until we saw him lift a large sack out of his truck, it was the supplemental feed, lol, and he was clearing their feed area! 

The Impala waited patiently but once he drove away they and others rushed over to have their meal!

The Zebras appear to have brown stripes on a light cream backgound rahter than black on white, lol!

There also seem to be more Giraffe than ever and there were a couple of younger ones. One of the adults wandered across the road in front of us!

After a break we went round again and saw a few different activities, aTapir enjoying the water as well as lots of Water Buffalo living up to their name.

The Chimpanzees were much more active, including a couple in the water! One of them was dragging his/her blanket round with him, lol!

On the second round we saw 
some very irresponsible people. Among the rules are keep your windows closed at all times and do not feed the animals. 

Well, we saw a van with people feeding an Ostrich, looked like bread, and they were there for a good ten minutes, grrr! 

As we neared the end we saw a young girl waving a large green drink bottle to try and attract the attention of a Giraffe so it would move closer. 

This is sending a very bad message to children who were in the vehicles. It is not fair on the animals to behave in this way! Needless to say, we did pass a message on to the relevant people!

I love this Safari as each area is very large and the animals have plenty of room to roam in their particular section. 

There are many feeding stations for supplements to the diet of the grasseaters. There seem to be more animals there than on our previous visit.

We were very lucky as on the way home we could see the storm clouds gathering, again, and the rain started just before we arrived home! 

After that, we had thunder and lightning on and off for most of the evening!