Austin Science and Nature Museum

On February 25, Glenn and I went to the Austin Nature and Science Center.  We had been invited to join a group going through our new friends, Christine and Lily-who we met at story time at the library.

It was a mixture of outdoor and indoor exhibits.  It also was kind of windy that day.  But despite that we had a fun time.  Glenn and Lily loved running up the path from the parking lot.  They were gone before I could get a picture of them.  If you look closely at this picture you can see Glenn's head just behind Lily, who is wearing the polka dot jacket, and Christine who was running up to catch them.

The first indoor exhibit area had all kinds of rocks, bones, seeds, anything and everything there.  But this was a hand's on experience for the kids.  They could touch everything look at them through telescopes...

...and magnifying glasses.

In both pictures you can see armadillo bones--pretty cool stuff!

They also had displays that people have donated.  We liked the butterflies.

Glenn's favorite was this one--the Tiger Swallowtail...

...and I liked the White Angled Sulfur.

I think the favorite spot outside was the Dino Pit.  

The kids got to dig and brush and uncover "fossils" of their own.  The "fossils" here are copies of original ones that were found in downtown Austin.

Next we walked around the birds of prey exhibit.

 I had never seen a roadrunner before and he was pretty cool.  I tried to get a video of him making a noise, but he wouldn't do it for me when I had the camera going.  I do like the little head tilt at the end of the video.

We also saw several different types of owls.  I didn't take any pictures (why, I'm not sure..)

We did see hawks too.  I tried to get pictures, but the fence was in the way--but you can still see them in there.

 These were the kids we went with.  I couldn't tell you their names, but Glenn did enjoy running around with them and being with kids his age.  

 And this is Glenn and Lily.  She is a cute girl!  She too just moved here to Austin--from Singapore!  She gets really excited to see Glenn and has wanted to have him over to play.  We haven't been able to yet--and since we leave to Spain on Tuesday March 5th, we won't have time until we come back.

Oh!  I don't know what kind of bird it is, but I have seen them all over Austin.  I wanted to capture the really strange sound they make, but only got this:

They also make this sound--almost like a car starting or something.  I can't even describe it other than it is so weird to hear it coming from a bird.  They are loud though!  At the park it is like a big chorus of them!

Another exhibit had reptiles.  Glenn liked the snakes.

 And the foxes!

 I know this one is blurry, but it's an opossum.  I took a picture of the sign because I thought it was funny that they play dead when they are scared!  How great!

And even though it was a windy day we really enjoyed our visit there.  It is a small sort of center, but it is nice.  They also have a small stream running through part of it and we saw kids playing in it.  So maybe when we get back from Spain we can go again and play in the water and see the animals again.