Dodge Nature Center
The amount of cool places that I continually discover within just a few miles my house never ceases to amaze me. Tonight Patty and I took a walk through some trails at the Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul. It’s an environmental education center for school-aged children, but it also offers free hiking trails for the general public. Apparently, it’s a bit under-used; as with most places we go to in St. Paul, Patty and I were literally the only people there tonight.
I didn’t really know what the place was before we went (I’d never even heard of it before), and I was pretty amazed to walk up to the map board, look to my left and see a hawk, an owl and a Bald Eagle sitting in a series of raptor mews. (Man, that eagle! I’d never actually seen one up close before. They are beautiful — and huge.) Apparently, the birds are all injured or imprinted. We also ran across a functioning apiary (bee colonies), animal barns, ponds and a variety of wildlife. We only walked through about a fourth of the trails there; we’ll have to come back for the rest.
Any place you can walk around and run into a Bald Eagle is pretty cool, so you outdoor enthusiasts out there should check it out for yourselves. One word of caution: I did pick up a wood tick. MPR says there is an abundance of them this year because of the cool, wet weather. Yay for Minnesota.
More pictures here.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I am going to have to check this place out!