On October 8th, my family and I took a trip to The Living Desert, the local botanical garden and animal park. It was me, my parents, two brothers, and nephew. We were there for about three hours and it was three hours well spent. The three most interesting animals were the coyote, mountain lion, and bobcat.
We saw the coyote first and we must have shown up during meal time, since at least two of the coyotes were running around, excited. The third coyote just stared at the other two from where he lay, obviously wondering what all the racket was about. One coyote even stood on a rock and howled. I’ve never actually heard a coyote howl before, so that was exciting.
The mountain lion was active. A couple of people were there with a child. The lion kept running at the glass, trying to get to the little girl. It reminded me of when I was about three and looking at a leopard. The leopard paced on his side of the glass, licking his lips, thinking that I might make a good snack. I ran and hid behind my mom’s leg. The big cats’ natural instincts are to hunt small prey and this child looked like prey to her.
The cutest out of the three was definitely the bobcat. He was playing with a ball, batting it to and fro, acting like a housecat. As we watched, however, the ball came rolling toward us and got tangled in some wire. The bobcat pawed at the ball, until he got it free, at which point, he started playing again. He actually knocked the ball into the air, brushing the leaves of a low hanging tree.
All in all, it was a fun day. We saw so many cute and interesting animals, like a bighorn sheep standing on its own private rocky hill, a tortoise flipping another tortoise from its shell back onto his feet, and even a couple of wolves chasing each other. The animals were truly a joy to see.
