Up Close and Personal with an Ostrich
On my way home from the hamfest yesterday, I stopped at the Harmony Park Safari, a cageless animal preserve near Huntsville. It isn’t a zoo in the conventional sense, but more of a big natural enclosure with a gravel path for your car. They don’t have the same variety of animals as a typical zoo, but that is made up for by the fact that they can move around freely and will often walk right up to your window. Some of them are quite bold, in fact — at one point I had my passenger side window open to get a picture of a camel wandering to the right of my car, and before I knew it he had his entire neck inside and was reaching for a drink that was in the center console! The ostriches were also rather persistent, using their long necks to stare at me at eye level from a foot away, or to stick their heads inside for a better look.
This was an excellent setting for photography, although I didn’t get nearly as many usable pictures as I wanted, and next time I will try to go closer to sunset, and do more continuous shooting rather than waiting for the animals to strike the perfect pose.
Harmony Park Safari doesn’t seem to have a website, but here is a link with some information and a map.
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