Today we went to the High Desert Museum. We saw lots of different animals and learned about water movement and how we affect water through everyday things we do. On the way there we drove up a smooth pavement road through the forest and then, just outside the building, there’s a cool pond with fish in it. The first thing we went to was the “Desertarium”. There were lizards, snakes, fish, turtles, tortoises, frogs, and spiders. We saw a reptile talk about chuckwallas, gopher snakes, and desert tortoises. Did you know that baby chuckwallas are yellow, orange, white, red, and black, but adults are just a dull black! We saw several different kinds of snakes, we saw a rubber boa, a couple different kingsnakes, rattlesnakes, and a gopher snake. We also learned that snakes have a clear eyelid just like birds! Some Galapagos Tortoises can live to be over two hundred and fifty years old! We saw one huge Alligator Snapping Turtle, it was super scaly and spiky and looked like a dinosaur. Alligator snapping turtles are known to eat everything they can catch, including snakes, crayfish, worms, water birds, aquatic plants, and other turtles! They can weigh up to 250 pounds and some have even bitten peoples fingers off!
Next we went to the otter exhibit. The river otters were all sleeping in their den so we got a really good look at them cuddling. One otter had its foot on the other ones face and it was hugging the other ones tail. Did you know that river otters sleep ten to twelve hours in a day and the rest of the time they play and eat! After we looked at the otters for a while we went to the raptor building. First we saw a talk about porcupines and we got to watch a porcupine eat and climb and run. That wasn’t very cool so we went and saw the barn owl. It was almost invisible it was so white except for the brown heart around it’s face. Right next to that was the Golden Eagle. It was huge, in its cage there was a big cliff-like structure and it was sitting up on top of that looking down at us. I could definitely see why they called it golden. It’s back had gold speckles and it’s head was almost glimmering. We compared Bald Eagles to the Golden Eagle and its surprising how alike they are. The Golden Eagle only outweighs the Bald Eagle by a half pound and is only about an inch taller. One of their main differences is the Bald Eagles has no feathers on its legs and the Golden Eagle does. the Bald Eagle has bare legs because it’s a fishing eagle and the the golden primarily hunts land animals. Next we saw the Great Horned Owl. It was sitting up in a tree slowly turning its head back and forth. It was camouflaged so well that we almost missed it.
After that we went back inside and saw the Bobcat. It was sleeping and it had its own blanket and everything! We went into the Native American Exhibit and learned all about the different types of fish in the rivers and how they caught them. We saw the progression of how they lived and became less and less nomadic. The Native Americans used to live in tepees which are transportable and allowed them to follow the food, but now they live in houses and go to the grocery store. We also walked through a replica mineshaft with a mine cart and pickaxes. It was almost pitch black because they wanted to preserve the artifacts.
The last exhibit was about all the different ways that we as people just doing everyday things can pollute water and kill fish and animals and eventually, ourselves. It showed us how we can stop doing those things and learn to live cleaner and have fun doing it. |
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