Ogden Nature Center

 

Every time we go to visit ma, we drive past the Nature Center and comment on how we would like to check it out sometime. So today was the day! We picked up the kids, had some lunch and headed out.

Before we even hit the fee station there are some awesome views of the mountains.

And a bizarre display of bird houses. Honestly it looked like a graveyard of bird houses, but apparently there was some charity auction for them. Still, kind of weird.

Pretty little pond.

There is a brief I’d say .2 mile walk from the parking lot to the visitor center. When we arrived the nice lady informed us that we hard arrived on Ogden’s RAMP free Saturday. Sweet! Saved us $16 bucks or so. She explained a lot of the trails, and that the raptor exhibit is all birds either currently being rehabilitated, or are injured enough that they would not survive in the wild. Now that is my style of zoo. Not animals caged for the sole purpose of being viewed up close, but being helped while allowing the public to view them.

Falcon.

Eagle.

Bald eagle. I was irritated with the bars, but understood why they were there.

Eagle nest. Holy cow they are enormous!

Owl.

This crow bent his head all the way back to look at us…. pretty disturbing.

Another owl.

I forget what this was, but I want to say a falcon.

Pelican. These guys had a more open exhibit. But, these guys are less likely to peck my eyes out.

I forget what this was. Looks a little angry. After this we ended up on the trail. I thought it would be paved or a board walk but it was natural dirt path most of the way. Apparently they have wild turkeys running about as well.

Tadpoles in the murky stream.

Bizarre mess of tangled branches. Not sure if this is natural or was helped by man, but it’s a perfect little fort under here.

We took the side trail to the lookout. It offered a nice view here.

After mis-reading the map, we returned the wrong way. You know, I have decided I suck at reading maps.

But we did find a cute dragonfly.

Another strange canopy. There are quite few old hunting blinds, so I wonder if these are just more natural looking ones?

Stagnate pond through a more obvious blind, that I failed to take a picture of. This also let us know we had taken a wrong turn and were almost back to the visitor center. Crap, back we go.

Another dragonfly. I love these guys. They typically stay put longer than butterflies.

A wild rabbit appears! Considering the kids not knowing how to walk quietly, he actually let us get pretty close before taking off.

And here he is in the grass hoping we’d leave him alone.

After turning around twice… we reached the other pond.

Not further up, we spotted a deer just chilling next to this stagnate pond. She just watched us, but didn’t seem terribly perturbed by us. I signaled to the kids to keep as quiet as possible.

We got to watch her nibble some grass.

So then we decided to continue down the trail to see if it offered another view.

Nice view of the mountains above Ogden, with no man made stuff in the way.

A little bit closer through the trees, but now we definitely have her attention. The kids were really enjoying this, but I decided we had stressed her enough and we should head on down the trail.

A last parting shot.

Again, the kids were really having a good time, and I have learned that they will run and catch up if I start walking down the trail. Suddenly they exclaim there are more! What?

Oh wow! She has 2 fawn. Where in the world was she hiding them? She must have been laying on them. We got to watch them nurse for a minute.

She then kind of pushed them off with her back leg and started walking away. I think she thought we had left, so she let her young out to feed, then realized we were still there, kicked them off and started moving away. Alright kids, we have definitely stressed this mommy enough, it REALLY is time we move on down the trail.

I am now glad we struggled with the map and had to turn around twice because it allowed us to see this wonderful show of nature. The kids really enjoyed it and so did I. Sometimes life’s little mishaps can end in an awesome way.

The rest of the trail is rather pretty as well.

A couple other nice views of the mountains.

Blooming thistle.

Tanner kept mentioning Yoda Tree that was somewhere here in the park. This looks like Yoda to me, so I asked him if this was it, he said no. Alright.

Between getting a little turned around, and seeing an awesome display of nature, we were pushing our strict “park closes at 4” time, so we skipped one side trail I wanted to see.

After hitting the gift shop, we headed back to the car. I was hoping we would have time to see the aquarium but we did not.

Another shot of all the random bird houses… still kind of creepy.

You know, when it said Nature Conservatory I expected paved, or board walked trails. Other than the visitor center, and the bird exhibit, it was all wild and natural trails. We saw plenty of wildlife and had a wonderful time! Best random pay for nature (yet free today) adventure we have done.

Due to our timing there were not any people we saw. We got in free, and again saw some amazing wildlife. It was super easy and the kids, even though they have both done it before, really enjoyed it today. Yea, we got confused with the map but this was awesome! I would give it a perfect 10, but the strict closing time of 4 pm kind of rushed us, so I am removing a squirrel for that reason alone. (I’d probably remove another if I had to pay for it though) So, I guess fairly, we end at 8 squirrels.

As for difficulty, it’s not paved, nor board walked, but it is flat and generally hazard free and definitely family friendly, so I am going with a DR3.