Lions, but no tigers or bears...

I know I haven't posted lately--for this, I do apologize. But there's some good stuff coming up, starting with today's post.

Last weekend Big Man and I went to theWild Animal Park, or WAP as we affectionately call it. We're members, so though we pay an annual fee, we pay nothing to get in and parking is free--a pretty sweet deal since we live about 30 minutes from the park.

We often go first thing on a weekend morning to avoid the crowds. Since we can come back any time, we often only do one or two things and leave before it's gets packed. This visit was spent at Lion Camp and taking the train ride.

Big Man looooves taking pictures, and really likes the fact that Lion Camp often allows him to get such great shots. As we walked up, we thought they had added a recording of a lion roaring to the exhibit. Nope, it was the young male showing off! He sounded amazing, and hung around doing feline-type things. He's about 2 years old, and I can't remember his name, of course. He was enjoying some time to himself in the exhibit. He kept roaring, but never did it anytime we were close enough to shoot a video. It's an amazing sound, and one that you can hear for quite some distance. BTW, if you ever get the chance, we also highly recommend doing the Roar and Snore sleepover at the WAP - it's so cool, even for jaded visitors like us!

Isn't he gorgeous!

pawing at the ground--perhaps something moved?

I think this is actually a method of smelling something better. Complete hypothesis, but given his other actions, it seemed similar to a flehmen response.

Scratching away

Either smelling something or the end of a meow. I just thought it was funny.

eating the grass

chilling on his Land Rover (it's part of the exhibit)

And, if you can stand a few more pictures, here's some non-lion photos! The first is one of my favorite critters--though I have no particular reason for them to be a favorite--red river hogs! The second is for the Seester--she loves these guys :)

I'm pretty sure this is one of the babies from this spring. Bebeh red river hogs are cuter than almost anything, and that includes kittens.

They sit like this all. the. time. (It's a ring-tailed lemur, in case you were wondering)