Michael & Ava go to the Nature Center

For those of you that are unaware, I work at the Nature Center.

When my grandchildren were visiting I wanted to take them

to visit the wild animal park for the first time.

So why this picture of the pumpkin? 

Because for several weeks I intended to take my camera to work to

get a picture of it and finally succeeded after it had been tossed in the garbage.

It still looked good even then..

A fellow employee carved this pumpkin and gave it to

us to display in the office.

Isn't it cool?

Anyway, we started our tour by visiting the sand hill cranes.

I'm fond of sand hill cranes, because they bring back a memory

of my daughter, Meghan when she was just little.

She came running excitedly to find to me, because

she thought we had an ostrich in our front yard.

It was a large sand hill crane.

Next we stopped by to see the coyote. 

If a group of people imitate a high pitched howl,

this coyote usually howls back.  Michael did a very

good imitation, but this old guy was not in the mood on this particular day.

A white tailed deer.

Can you see the little screech owl peaking out the hole in the tree?

Michael & Ava had a hard time finding him. 

So I took a picture on my camera & enlarged it,

then showed them through the picture viewer on my camera.

"Oh! there he is!"

We spent the most time at this mammals exhibit.

This is Wopi our resident beaver.

You can see his flat tail at the bottom of the picture.

Michael & Ava wanted him to swim, but I was

thrilled with the fact that he was out and came up to the fence.

He's a very personable beaver.

The groundhogs have been moved inside for the winter, that was a bummer.

Part two at the Nature Center will follow this post.

I want to put as many of the animal pictures I took

so the Michael and Ava can see them and tell their Mom

all about the visit.