butterflies and ducklings

We visited the Nature Museum this afternoon. The kids were all excited to see that some button quails had just hatched out of their eggs. They were really fun to watch. Some of the little birds were sleeping, others were scratching around for food, and some were drinking from the water feeder. We watched the quails for a few minutes while waiting on friends to show up.

The other best part of the museum is the butterfly room. It is small and full of plants and sunlight. The rows of coccoons hang in little glass cabinets, and everyone has to walk carefully to avoid stepping on a butterfly sunning herself on the brick floor. Nova wanted very much to have a butterfly land on his hands. He kept pretending to be a flower the whole time. Willow tried it, too, for a few minutes but we didn't have any butterfly landings today.



When the kids were getting a little too excitable for the museum, we decided to take a walk around the park. There is a bridge from the museum to the park, and we walked across it. The kids were so excited because there were so many duck and goose feathers, and they gathered some for "quill pens". We ran halfway around the pond, chasing Nova some of the way when he decided to run wildly down the trail. All of the running and walking paid off when we saw that the ducklings had hatched!! They were swimming around the pond with their adult family members (a very proud Mama and Daddy included), and they swam right up to us when we walked up to admire them! They were absolutely adorable!! We spent a long time looking at them before continuing on with our walk.




On the way back to the van, we saw a mockingbird attacking a black snake! And Nova spotted a big brown bunny hopping into the woods. A large crane flew across the pond when we were almost done with our walk. All of these things were so fast and surprising that I couldn't get pictures. I did manage to get a couple of pictures of these little tree creatures...


We had a really wonderful day.