Saturday, February 7, 2009

Nature Center Field Trip

This school year, we have been studying animals and just taking our time learning about different ones. If the kids are really interested in certain animals, then we might do a little extra research for that particular animal. We have been reading about birds, or more specifically about raptors. So, I took the kids to the Nature Center at Western Hills where they have an eagle, an owl, and a hawk in captivity. They also have a bobcat (which Samuel absolutely loved), a coyote, a oppossum, a silver looking fox, and a few snakes that are indigenous to our area.
The eagle was my favorite. When he spread his wings, half of his right wing was gone, which was why they have him in a cage.
A hawkThe owl. Did you know that an owl does not fully digest its food? It spits it back up in pellets and if you open the pellets you can tell from the bones what animal the owl ate. Guess what? I ordered some owl pellets for the kids to cut open and see what bones are in them. I will have more pics of these later. I'm sure you can't wait to see them.
I thought my dad was going to come out of his skin when the guide brought this little girl out to us. Apparently, she raised her from a baby and is very used to being handled by humans.

The bobcat was Sammy's favorite. He kept pacing around his cage and I never could get a good shot of him.The foxThe coyote.

A trough full of animal bones. Probably from what they fed the bobcat. She said they were going to be feeding him a tasty dinner of turkey chicks that day.

The guide brought out some snakes for the kids to touch and my pictures were too blurry to post. I guess because I kept moving back away from them! She told the kids how to tell if a snake is poisonous or not. If a snake is poisonous, it's neck will be bigger than it's head. A non-poisonous snake's head and neck are the same size.

1 comment:

liesel said...

That place looks amazing! You'll have to share more when I see you next.