Beardsley Zoo

We headed to Beardsley Zoo this weekend.  It was a "new" zoo that we had not yet traveled to and we thought it would be a fun way to spend our Saturday.  Ian decided to head to work with his grandfather instead so we just had the younger two; who love learning about animals!


It was fun, but it was a much smaller zoo than I had pictured... I'm not sure why I pictured it to be so much bigger; they do have a map online and we had looked at it before going.  It was laid out nicely and very clean too.

We had a great time!

We were greeted with this large world sculpture 

Close up we saw that the animals were all carved into the continents on which they are found! 

Condors 

Measuring his arm span against the condor's wingspan 
 They have a greenhouse and we enjoyed looking at all the exotic plants.



My kids were quite impressed with this African Milk Tree 

We thought this plant reminded us of brains or coral 



Alec told us all about how this pitcher plant works 




There was a large Koi pond in the middle of the greenhouse 


We had no idea that we would see so many neat and unusual plants.  Once we finished up in the greenhouse we headed off to see all of the animals. 



Learning about the rat snake 

Ocelot 


Black marsh turtle also known as the smiling turtle 

Evan talking to the guinea hens 
Amur Leopard 

Lynx 

Evan's favorite was the otter; isn't he cute?!

They were so playful too. 

There were tunnels for the kids to go INSIDE the prairie dog town 

 

How do you measure up to the world's penguins 


Our last stop was the carousel; we didn't ride it but we did look at the various animals depicted on the zoo's carousel.  They had a panda bear, a puffin and other assorted animals.  All around the carousel they had a carousel museum set up.  The boys enjoyed studying the various horses and picked their favorite out of each group.  Alec pointed out that most every horse in the museum had real hair for the tail instead of the sculpted and painted ones that we see now a days.



It was a fun trip but the zoo was pretty small so we were able to cover the whole thing in two hours.  There was also a small playground, a few garden paths to wander through (like the sculpture garden we didn't see listed on the map until after we left!).  There were so many signs  and we learned a lot about animals by reading them and talking to various docents.  


Comments

  1. I showed my son the picture of the snake. He went sheet white :) He is not a fan of snakes at all!

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    1. LOL! I'm not a big fan of snakes either. I was asked if I wanted to go to the reptile house or go see the bats and I said "umm.... neither?!" But, of course I sucked it up and went with them. My boys are fascinated by reptiles of all kinds.

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  2. I showed my son the picture of the snake. He went sheet white :) He is not a fan of snakes at all!

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  3. I love the cave carvings! I live right by Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. It's so great to visit there.

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    1. We just love zoos and aquariums. We once went to a serpentarium in Wilmington, NC; that was quite the experience!

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  4. Sometimes small zoos are the best! You can see everything without being too exhausted at the end of the day! I love the exotic plant pictures.

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    1. Very true... I just wish we hadn't driven quite so far.. the drive took us more than double the time that we were there. I was really impressed with their greenhouse though!

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  5. I LOVE visiting zoos! I have not been to this one, thanks for sharing!

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    1. Zoos and aquariums tend to be my favorite field trips. I just love watching all the animal antics.

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  6. I like smaller zoos like this one. You got so many terrific photos. It's great that the kids got to learn and read the info. I love these kinds of field trips :) Thanks for sharing at Together on Tuesdays!

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  7. We have a similar wingspan measurement board at our zoo. :) I wish our zoo had penguins! We just finished the book Mr Popper's Penguins, it would be fun to see some in person!

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