Outdoor Nature Hour: beaver & muskrat

I learned from my friend Holly's blog that one of the nature centers had a beaver exhibit so off we went! We had actually missed the exhibit but the kids did climb through the beaver dam and watch a short film about beavers.


We came home and the kids colored beaver and muskrat pictures while I read from the Handbook of Nature Studies, Fun with Nature and North American Wildlife books about these two rodents.

We think that surely we would have muskrats living in our creek!
Hayes discovered that she and a beaver weigh about the same while a muskrat and one of our cats are of similar weight.
Also while we were at the nature center, the kids were fascinated in the reptile room with this black rat snake, who, incidentally, has arthritis and can't curl up,

and watched this box turtle inhale his tomato lunch.

Afterwards, we fed ducks in the blowing wind.