Continuing in Animal Kingdom

May 27, 2013

Emerging from the great safari, we felt like we were truly in Animal Kingdom, and continued to explore. We walked close to the big tree and could examine the animals sculpted into the trunk of the big signature tree of Animal Kingdom.

We visited some large bats which were just "hanging out" among the rocks. I was surprised at the amount of color on them, and the fact that they seemed to have some fur. I'm guessing that these are the large South American bats, sometimes called "flying foxes". If so, they are primarily fruit eaters.

A fine furry-backed specimen.

We entered an area evocative of ancient India with a promise of tigers. But we got there at siesta time, and all the tigers were asleep like household kitties.

Letting sleeping tigers lie, we wandered on into a bird sanctuary for large birds, and they definitely weren't sleeping. This amazing large red-headed crane was really loud, calling it's mate. A nice lady guide there told me these cranes could be 6 feet tall! We were used to peacocks being really loud, but perhaps this one was intimidated by the loud-mouthed crane.

Back to the large animal area to look at this fine big-antlered member of the deer family.

This is the female of this deer species, and another specimen of the white-legged ox.

We cycled back around to the tiger area and found that one of them was waking up from his nap. Then he took his best sphinx pose.

Time for a rest and a bit of reconaisance to plan our next explorations. We found another path to explore and set out. We felt very fortunate to find another tiger enclosure with this beautiful animal up and walking around!

I don't know what this fellow is looking at and licking his chops, but I'm glad he's not looking in my direction!

Oh oh! Now is is looking in my direction! And he's getting closer! I think it's time to get out of here!!

I was indeed grateful to be able to observe such a magnificent animal at close range.