Heron Haven Nature Center

Upside is it’s free! Stopped in as my nephew was building a covered seating area as part of an Eagle Scout project. Between ‘supervising’ I took a little time to check out the trails and do a little hiking. There are some easy trails to explore the woods, along with some marsh and swampland as well. A decent spot in town to take in a little nature (no Herons this time, but I did spot a painted turtle sunning himself), but unfortunately being so close to Maple St, the drone of traffic takes away some of the peacefulness of being in nature. But like I said, this place is free, so it’s not a bad little spot to check out and wander around.

I have lived a quarter of a mile from here for seven years and sadly only visited a couple of times. My visit today reminded me as to why I need to check out this place more frequently. this is a very tranquil area in what I would consider a highly populated part of town. Yes, you can hear the traffic noise of W. Maple Rd. which does affect the ambience a bit, but the trails are very well maintained, they have an area to observe butterflies and of course lots of water to check out different wildlife. Today it was more like a goose Haven, not heron Haven, but my kids loved it. Plus this place is free! If you are looking for an exciting activity for the kids or just want some peaceful time to yourself, definitely check out heron haven. They have many benches and a couple of nice observatories to watch the birds. Next time I will be sure to pack a snack or lunch and make a longer excursion of it!

I brought the kids here for the annual wetlands festival. They had lots of activities like making pine cone bird feeders, face painting, geode cracking, fishing for magnet toys, bubbles, a movie tent about tadpoles, a tent full of butterflies (and they did a butterfly release later). They had lemonade and snacks. I think the coolest part was the wildlife encounter. They brought out a cute little desert fox, a small baboon, some kind of African cat that jumps really high, a ring tailed lemur, a crocodile, and my daughter got to pet a huge albino Burmese python.
Overall, it was a lot of activity action with a very minimal amount of walking. Omaha’s zoo is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but it is a lot of walking and a lot of hills. Not everyone can handle that much hiking. I didn’t know what to expect so I brought the stroller, but I was pleasantly surprised to not have to do a bunch of walking for this little festival.
Parking is very limited, so if you go for an event like this make sure you get there early to get a parking spot. I’ve never been there during normal days so I have no idea what there is to do there when there isn’t a festival going on, but the parking lot is always nearly empty the rest of the time.
I got the impression that the folks working there genuinely care about the animals and the environment, so that is cool. I’m glad we finally stopped by to check the place out. The festival was a good excuse to do so. We’ll be keeping an eye out for next year’s festival to go again.