Nature Sanctuary

 Yesterday was a short day and the kids got out at noon. I decided to take the crew to a nature museum. It was AWESOME. I had A, R and Nico with me. They would have been happy to just hang out at the entrance and watch the butterflies.

 As I was looking at the Woodlands diorama I looked down and noticed a large hairy spider. Perhaps it is a misplaced gift shop toy? No, it was a female tarantula. It hadn't escaped from any displays; it had just wandered in from outside. The Nature scientist that collected the spider said that the females usually do not leave their burrows and this is the second one she has seen. There is a mystery afoot...

 Inside were lots of cool displays including rocks, live animals, dioramas and even dinosaur bones. Here the boys are doing a dino dig.

 Outside was a large, fabulous butterfly garden. Ryan is posing in hopes of one landing on him.

 Um, our second encounter with a very large spider. This one a garden spider right where it should be.

 A viceroy butterfly. There were many varieties of butterflies. The boys' favorite was the large yellow swallow tail.

 Just as we were going towards the exit the snake feeder came in with a cage of mice. The boys were thrilled to fine out that they, THEY could watch him feed the snakes. I wasn't nearly as excited, but it is nature and science so I couldn't deny them that opportunity.

If you click on this picture and zoom in, you will see the mice's toes hanging out of this snake's mouth. We saw a rattlesnake eat a rat. I didn't realize how loud their rattles are. We also saw water snakes eat some fish. A very cool trip. I will have to go back and do some birding and wild life watching when those boys are not with me. They tend to have their own sound barrier!