our journey through life: cleve museum of natural history

there was a special traveling exhibit on dinosaurs at the museum for the last 3 months or something and i kept promising the kids that we'd go before it left. and we finally made it- on the day before it closed! but it turned out to be a perfect day for us to go!

we were going to head outside in their live animal area for a special feeding demonstration. we were all bundled up, since the wind chill was about ZERO degrees, and the wildlife specialist was starting to explain the demonstration, when he got a radio call from another guy, saying that a bird had escaped!

so, he went off running outside to help, and naturally, all the kids followed a step behind him, and the parents went a little more slowly outside...

here's the escapee, a morning dove. we learned that it's not really a dove, but a pigeon, but since he's so light in color, he got the name dove. now, this is the first known escape at the history museum, and this bird did NOT want to go back into that aviary!

3 of the wildlife specialist were out there with long nets trying to catch it. they were climbing fences and roofs and trees, and throwing sticks to try and get him within reach, but that bird evaded them! after about 10 minutes, most of the kids had gone back inside, since our special feeding demonstration was canceled. but did we go back inside? OH NO!!! we stayed out there for an hour and half watching that bird go from tree to tree! we went inside a few times to warm up and jess fell down so we needed a band-aid, but other than that, we were keeping a keen eye on the bird. jonny was so excited to help, collecting sticks, and tracking it when it flew.

we finally had to leave because the sun was setting and the museum was closing, and they still hadn't caught him! but it was worth it because as we were leaving, one of the specialist thanked us for our help (even though we really didn't do anything) and offered to give us a behind the scenes tour when we come back!

that's all jonny could talk about the rest of the day, and as he was crawling into bed that night, he said 'this was the best day ever! i got to be a zoo keeper!!' i'm so glad he got this special experience, since he wants to be an animal rescuer when he grows up.

and now the rest of the museum experience, before the escape...

playing animal puppet show

this is a metal bone frame, an allosaurus i think, but it was to demonstrate how the bones worked together to make movement in a simplified way. the traveling exhibit was interesting and had a lot of cool fossils and bones!