The most fun I have had on a ride since Mr. Toads wild ride at Disneyland. The Tour of the Ostrich Ranch was both educational and exciting. The ride in the monster bus was a real blast.
The tour includes information about Ostriches of course, as well as the flora and Faina of Picacho Peak.
Here the Monster Tour Bus is backed up to the loading dock. No climbing ladders to get on board.
Leaving the loading dock you see Picacho Peak in the background looking very much like a volcanic neck of an extinct volcano. This is not the case however, it is the faulted, tilted, and eroded remains of a sequence of lava flows.
The male Ostrich is generally black with a white tail. These guys can weigh up to 340lb. At maturity a male Ostrich stands 6 to 9 feet tall.
Nests are scraped out by the male and will be 12 to 24 inches deep by up to 9 feet wide.
While the Ostrich is the largest bird and has the largest egg, relative to the size of the bird it is the smallest egg.
Moving on we heard a little about cactus which I have already covered in a previous post, so meat the three amigos.
Then there was ostrich fishing. Ah, like we were going to pull a 300lb bird up on a dock. Not!
So there is all the ostriches, and what you do is....
...put a quarter of a grapefruit on a big eye bolt and ...........
hang it over the side of the dock. Just like fishing right? OK, so we were just feeding them there vitamin C for the day.
Note the eye on the one closest to the grapefruit, Ostriches have a protective eye lid that's blue. They can see through this eye lid.
At 300lbs and with a brain the size of a walnut his may be were the expression " bird brain" came from.
They eat mostly seeds, shrubs, grass, and fruit.
In the wild they can be found in groups of 5 to 50.
In the yellow hat and green sweatshirt is our guide and monster bus driver, Dana. She was a grate deal of fun and leaving the fishing dock took us for a wild ride over some sand dunes.
Isn't it cute?
The eye of an ostrich is 2 inches in diameter. This helps them see predators at a greater distance. (A good thing when you could be a lions lunch.)
Back at the visitors center we found more things to feed. Like these Lorikeets, which can be a handful.
There is always one that can be a pain in the neck.
Rainbow Lorikeets are a true parrot found in many south pacific islands, southeast Asia, and Australia.
Nearly every color in the rainbow can be found in there feathers.
Then there were the burrows to feed.
No, that is not the most deformed borrow in the word. There is two borrows there going for the same treat.
You do not have to go on the tour to feed ostriches, caution, ostriches bite.
Meet the hole in the wall gang.
Eileen feeding the Fallow Deer.
Fallow Deer are native to Europe and the Middle East.
These are not fawns but adult deer, our Grate Dane Bear is larger and out weighs them by 60lbs.
Eileen elected this one the cutest because of it darker color and of course the big brown eyes.
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