Squawk!!!

One of the fun things we did while in Miami was to visit Jungle Island, formerly Parrot Jungle.  We took the dinghy over and came into a derelict dockage area, but docked up anyway.  

In order to get to Jungle Island, we had to wait for a private fence to open by drivers with a code.  We did not have a code.  We would not have a code when we left Jungle Island later in the day.  We sauntered through the gate anyway and bought our tickets.  As soon as we entered, we were (almost) made to go through a line and get our photos taken with parrots who played dead or sat on your shoulder.

 We opted out and cut in front of everyone, including the photographer, to start our regular tour.  I expected a cheesy place, but we had a really good time even if it was to get away from the boat for a day.

We joined in watching an animal parade in the kids' area and I was laughing at the juggler who dropped a pin.  When a kid came out to pick it up and give it back, he "accidentally" dropped another one, and so on, much to the kids delight. 

There were snakes and crocodiles and monkeys and lions and tigers and ligers and warthogs and yes, lots of parrots and other birds.  And lemurs!  The juggler from earlier led one of the shows on mammals, including lemurs  He was very funny and so was the lemur as he hopped on peoples' heads and snatched grapes from the part in their hair.  It was hilarious; you had to be there.

One of the shows we went to showed off of some of their prized birds including the parrots.  The vulture was kind of creepy, but interesting.  The most frightening bird was a cassowary, which, we found out (and glad we were higher up in the bleachers), could eviscerate a human being in a second or so with the long nail on the second toe of their three-toed foot.  Like that extra second would make any difference in the long run.  Yikes.  The one they had had been born there and hand raised, so no evisceration show today.  Look at the photo; proof that birds are the closest living thing to dinosaurs today.

My lesson for you today is to never cross paths with a cassowary  That's a cassowary over there at the left; I filched the photo from some internet source.  Look at those feet!  You're welcome.