Healesville Sanctuary

For Robin's birthday the girls gave him (and me) a subscription to the Zoo.  We took advantage of it for the first time by going to the Australian section of the zoo out at Healesville to see the Birds in Flight show as we had not seen that for some years.

It has changed a bit over the years, adding parrots to the display.  The wedge-tail is still the star though.  The day was pretty hot so after the show we just took in the exhibits on the way out, the reptile house, the koala's and the Kangaroos.

One thing has changed greatly here over the years.  When we came here the first time ever (our second day in Australia, over 40 years ago ) the emu's wandered freely around the site. But, they got to used to chips and ice creams and got to be a nuisance as they were liable to snatch food from kiddies. So, they went behind a fence some time ago, the emus, not the kiddies.  However, there is now a new food scrounger - free flying Ibis.  How they are going to be controlled is anyone's guess.  The cafe outdoor area is covered entirely by netting to keep them out.

It was a Thursday and the school holidays had not started but there were still a lot of people at the show. 

One of the smaller birds of prey - a Hawk I think

...and here is a closer view of him.

The wedge tail is pretty large, and this one is quite old too.  He has been in the show for the last twenty years.

Having a chat to the keeper

From the birds we went into the Reptile House, which Robin likes. Snakes do nothing for me but the little tree frogs are cute.

There is a very good Koala display there now, with the koala's being their usual sleepy selves.

The kangaroo enclosure has been changed so that people can no longer get to them, only view them.  That is fair enough as the old enclosure just had low ropes fencing off an area that Skippy could go when he had enough of people so this is better for him.  All of them were just lazing in the shadows.