Friday, October 19, 2012

Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory

Not wanting to waste a day indoors on a beautiful day we opted for an outdoor activity today. For awhile I have been wanting to check out  Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory.

I'm glad I didn't have to travel far to visit this place. Although I can see that environmentally it has a positive aspect, I can't say that I enjoyed any of it but the being outdoors on a beautiful day part.

The bird observatory is located on the premises of a water treatment sludge facility (why? I have no earthly idea) so the first thing you notice when you get out of the car is the stench of raw sewage. I can overlook stuff like that because...well, I have kids and anyone that has or had kids knows what sort of smells can permeate from them. Summer on the other hand, decided to dramatize the whole stench situation.

We first started out on one of the trails along the Colorado. Summer had a snake cross the trail in front of her that startled her a bit. Another good reason to continue on about how much she didn't like where we were....

There were at least a couple of miles of trail and 3 or 4 large ponds  in the observatory but we only walked about a mile of the trail. A portion of the trail was along the Colorado River...


There were thousands of these little butterflies fluttering everywhere. We saw more butterflies than we did birds...


We approached what Toby called the Aquatic Center. I was envisioning a pond full of fish or something along that lines. Once we made it into the building there was more stench..like the smell of stagnant water. In the large building there was a large algae covered pond. There were no signs of life in the water nor in the building other than mosquitoes and the sounds of some kind of creature jumping into the water as we walked through.

As you can imagine, Summer is really starting to enjoy this place now....


Despite my curiosity about this place, I opted not to place any more torture upon any of us and we headed back around the trail to the car. I silently hoped that we would eventually run into something really cool to make the day worthwhile. We never did....


One of the ponds

Trail back to the car
Shelter for observing birds
Better luck next time!!


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