River Trails Nature Center

The weather remained lovely for us this morning. Henry and I got to the nature center around 9AM. I had just heard of this place a couple days ago at school. A 2nd grade teacher from another building mentioned it when we were discussing field trips. We have another nature center a little farther away, with a bigger indoor facility, but this one was very nice. Henry and I arrived just as an employee was coming out to clean the cages of some of the animals. Like most centers, the animals they have there are animals that have been injured and rehabilitated, but not in peak condition to survive on their own in the wild.
As we drove up the first thing I noticed was a fox in a cage. This was very exciting for Henry, as his Grammie had just brought him a fox poster. There were also owls, a one-eyed red-tailed hawk (pictured here) and a female bald eagle, with only one wing. Oh, and a skunk. No photo of the skunk, but it sure was cute!
As the man cleaned out the cages he spoke to us a little bit (there was another mom and young boy there). He talked about how rain is good for the birds' feathers (helps clean them, get bugs off etc.) and he gave a couple of them showers with the hose. The bald eagle loved it. He waited until she was up on her perch (sort of a low balance-beam) so that she could flap her wing (and wing stub). When he sprayed her she faced right into it and flapped away, clearly enjoying the shower.
The guy found a couple of cool bugs to show us, and brought over a feather from the Great Horned Owl's cage as well. It was very soft (the better to fly silently with).
Inside we saw turtles, some snakes, a little black squirrel...
There looked to be some nice trails around the property, but Henry wasn't in the mood to walk. We'll go back some time to do some stomping in the woods.