Have been in San Diego to visit  Bai Yun and her young cub, Yun Zi at the zoo. He sleeps a lot so there are not a lot of photo ops, unless your lucky enough to be there when he is active. So far I haven’t.

Su Lin, the 4-year-old sister on Yun Zi. She is supposed to go to China sometime in the near future.

Mandarin ducks. They are related to wood ducks and have to be one of the most beautiful duck there is. These two bent over in unison to get a drink of water. There are some birds and ducks that fly into the zoo grounds, this isn’t one of them. They are definitely specimen ducks.

Male and female wood ducks.

I have really enjoyed visiting the zoo’s walk-in bird aviaries this visit. In the late afternoon, birds are flying all around you as they prepare to roost for the evening, eating and taking baths in the waterfalls.

Above is a White-bellied-Imperial-pigeon that has an incredible bass two note song. He bows each time he says “who who”.  He does this for a long time, then has to stop to get his breath. Everyone that came in asked “Is he making that sound?” I recorded a short video and will try to upload it later.

Update: Got the video of the white-bellied-imperial-pigeon, but the stream with it’s waterfalls that runs through the aviary drowns out the low bass sound the pigeon makes.

Nicobar pigeon

Grand eclectus parrot

White breasted kingfisher. There is an fish tank in the aviary. Guess the kingfishers can catch their own dinner.

Below, an African lion let out a loud growl when an animal keeper walked in front of him after giving a talk about the lions.