Texas Gypsies: Alamogordo Zoo

Friday, November 25, 2016

Today is scheduled as a lazy day. We started by sleeping in. I took my time at getting breakfast ready. It was such a beautiful morning that I decided we needed to go to the local zoo which would give us time to walk around outside.

The zoo here is pretty small and only cost seniors $1.50. We took pictures of most of the animals that we saw except the ones that were curled up asleep. Here goes.....

This bearded dragon was inside the admission office.

This tortoise weighed about 200 pounds.

Capybara is the largest living rodent from Central & South America.

We never learned the name of these pretty ducks.

These ducks with the 2 black stripes on the back of their head are called Barred Ducks. They are known to fly extremely high at around 29,000 ft and migrate over great distances.

This is part of a large duck pond. As you can see there are mostly mallard ducks.

Not sure the name of this duck, but I thought it was really pretty.

Then there was this unique little duck. I wish they had more signs posted describing the various ducks.

Here's the rest of the duck pond. There were lots of turtles in this part of the pond. See below a row of turtles sunning themselves.

This American alligator was hiding in the green muck. Tic zoomed in so you could see him. Otherwise he looked like a bump on a log in the muck.

This hawk and the other predatory birds below are all here due to illness or being shot. They are all recovering.

Horned owl.

There were actually 2 bald eagles in this habitat.

This little sea otter was having fun swimming around then sunning itself.

This North American Badger is extremely fat. We wondered if it was a pregnant female.

This little red fox looks so sweet and cuddly.

This ocelot was just sitting looking out. It was sad.

The mountain lion was eating half a chicken. The chicken looked frozen because the lion could not bite or chew it easily.

Another sad scene. This black bear was pacing around.

There was an aviary there. We saw this bird. I believe it is a sort of pheasant.

There were several of this type of guinea running around.

There weren't any signs around talking about the kinds of birds in the aviary, so we just took pictures.

We saw at least 5 or 6 of these little nests attached to bamboo stalks. The unique thing was the entry opening was always on the bottom side of the nest.

Guanaco are ancestors of the domestic llama.

This is a rhea. I thought it was an emu until I saw the sign.

African Crowned Crane. Tic says it is having a bad hair day. Ha Ha

This iguana was the last critter we saw at the Alamogordo Zoo. At least it was a beautiful day for walking around outside.

After we left the zoo, we headed to Rockin BZ Burgers. We were told they had the best burgers in town.