Sunday Selections #363

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.  River is having a blog break at the moment (and will be missed), so I am keeping the meme warm in her absence.  She did post for Sunday Selections last week, and I am hoping she will again today.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme.  January is birthday month for rather a lot of my family and extended family.  My partner, my middle brother, several nephews and me.  My middle brother had a significant birthday and his family liked the smaller portion's birthday treat of last year so much that the brother was also given a night at Jamala Wildlife Lodge.  He loved it.  The youngest brother and I clubbed together and gave him a 'Meet the Cheetah' experience to go with the zoo stay.  He loved that too.  The cheetah, Jura, purred the whole way through the encounter.  And I suspect that if the brother and his wife could purr they would have joined him.

As an aside.  This is the zoo where my youngest brother has volunteered for a number of years.  He tells me that while the zoo has several cheetahs not all of them enjoy interacting with people.  If they don't like it, it doesn't happen. Which is protection for the people of course, but also for the cheetah.  Which I think is excellent.  And I really like that the zoo donates rather a lot of the profit from the animal encounter experiences to animal conservation projects.

The youngest brother and I made a surprise visit to the zoo to watch the interaction.  

The keeper went in first, and Jura trotted over to meet him.  Colour me jealous.

My brother and his wife (and another keeper) joined them.  The second keeper took photos for the lucky pair to cherish.  Just as well, because Jura changed position and we couldn't get any photos from the front.

Despite it being a stinking hot day, of course I looked in on some of the other animals while we were waiting for the cheetah encounter.

This is Hannah, a very old wombat.

The red-browed finches were more interested in Hannah's food than she was.  Much more.  If you click on the photo you will see that they are very pretty little birds.

The peacock was just outside the cheetah's enclosure, hunkered down in the vegetation.  I hope it is smarter than its offspring.  I gather the zoo no longer has peahens because the youngsters were going into the big cat's enclosures and being eaten.