Wildlife Images and Other Fun Places to Have Your Kid's Birthday Party in So. Oregon

One day my soon to be 9 year old son came home from school after having an assembly where Wildlife Images brought some animals for them to see, he announces, "I want go to Wildlife Images for my birthday this year!"  Well, I didn't even know if they would host a birthday party, but we thought, why not give them a call and see if they do, and if they don't, then I will just have his friends meet him there for a tour and then we can go to a local pizza parlor and finish up there.  Well, to our surprise they do have birthday parties there and it was awesome! 

For a fee, they have a room downstairs, under the gift shop, that they will reserve for your child.  Plus, they made goodie bags for the kids and even had

Olivia and Kellan checking out the snake.

a special present for the birthday boy!  They also supplied, plates and napkins, table decorations, streamers and a happy birthday sign.  Oh, and something extra cool was they had a terrarium with a snake in it and a display case with animal skulls and all sorts of other things for the kids to look at.  The snake was an especially, big hit!

After the party we got a private our of the grounds to see the animals.  What an amazing place!  In case you don't know what Wildlife Images is, this is a short description directly from their website: "Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center was founded as a non-profit corporation in 1981 by renowned wildlife rehabilitator J. David Siddon. The facility was created in order to provide for the care and treatment of sick, injured and orphaned wildlife. Wildlife Images has since expanded to provide educational programs on wildlife, conservation, and the environment to schools, organizations and the general public."


The first thing we see is a beautiful pond with a variety of ducks in it.  Of course, the kids loved watching them swimming around especially the littlest ones, but we weren't even inside the enclosure so we had to move on.  We had a great tour guide named Meghan, she was well informed and knew how to answer every question that we all threw at her.

Ibis drinking water.

When you walk through the tour area the first enclosure houses a variety of birds including a vulture, two cranes and a really cool ancient Egyptian bird, the ibis.  One of the cranes was found as an egg by a firefighter at a forest fire in Alaska and it actually hatched on his dinner table while he was trying to decide what to do with it.  He figured he couldn't be a crane mommy so eventually it got to Wildlife Images.  Pretty neat I would say!  You can tell all of the animals are used to being around humans because none of them were really shy.  In fact many showed off for us!




Ilias posing with Petrie

Right after we got done looking at the bird enclosure they surprised our son Ilias, with a personal animal encounter with a barn owl named Petrie, she was found by a Klamath Falls hay farmer on his truck as an egg in a bale of hay.  She was taken to Wildlife Images where she ended up hatching under a heat lamp .  She has been with them for 20 years and has even fostered a few of their other residents.  After getting her complete back story  they let all of the kids pose with her for pictures.  We learned some crazy facts about barn owls, but I'll let you go there to find out the rest for yourself. :)

We continued on to see a resident raccoon and then onto an enclosure containing a raven and three eagles.  It's so sad to hear of the injuries that some of the animals have.  Some of them are blind, or deaf can't use their wings or just can't function outside of a place with human intervention.  Some of them were raised by humans that thought they would like a wild animal as a pet and then they figure out that they weren't meant to be living with humans, but by then it's too late and the animals can't be put back into their habitat because they wouldn't survive.   Thank goodness for places like Wildlife Images!

Nestle peeking at all of the kids

After the bird sanctuary we went on to see a number of different owls and eagles and then  we get to the highlight of the tour,....the otter, Nestle.  This little lady was an actress in movies and came from Universal Studios in Orlando Florida.  They decided she was ready to retire to Wildlife Images.  She was such a character.  She kept swimming around in her little habitat, doing flips and kept coming up to the glass to say hi to the kids.  They loved her and when we all were walking away she got upset and started looking for everyone through each window.  I would say it would be worth a visit just to see her!


Nestle showing off in her private creek.

After seeing Nestle we moved on to visit the bigger animals starting with the little charmer, Nub's the American Badger.  He was such a flirt, acting shy, pawing at the fence just trying to keep our attention.  It was so cute!  Then we saw mountain lions (one was pacing and staring at us like he wanted to seriously play), wolves, they were kind of just bored with us.  Other animals they had were two bobcats, who were so cute playing tag with each other through there cages.  And then we got to the two grizzly bear siblings!  Kodi the male and Yak the female.  We walked past Kodi's enclosure, we thought he must be sleeping because there was no sign of him so we moved onto Yak. 


What a cutie as if on cue she went right up a tree and stood up against a tree and started scratching her back.  The kids really got a kick out of her she walked over to us and then got bored and then all

of a sudden we heard a big splash!  We walk back to Kodi's home and he is just hanging out in his pool then he proceeds to climb out and walks over to the fence separating him from his sister and he starts making a noise to bring her over.  They have a little chat and then she moves on.  We finish by visiting with a couple more smaller wild cats and head back to our little party room to pack up. 

 This was truly a memorable experience that my son will always remember and when he is 16 years old maybe he will want to volunteer there.  http://www.wildlifeimages.org/

If you are interested in having a birthday party at Wildlife Images, just give them a call during the week and they will get a little information from you to customize your party.  Their number is 541-476-0222

Some other great places we've had birthday parties in recent years are Rogue Rock Gym in Medford, your child doesn't even need to know how to rock climb they just need a sense of adventure.  And Think Tank Kids in Medford is great for a Nerf Battle Party. They supply the Nerf guns and goggles and you bring the party.  Our kids all had a blast.

Thanks for reading I hope you got the information you are looking for.  Check back at least once a week, I will be sharing our many adventures around Southern Oregon ~ Lanessa Pierce -What to do in Southern Oregon

For a complete list of great places to have kids birthday parties, from the normal to the unusual check our website at http://www.whattodoinsouthernoregon.com/#!birthday-parties-southern-oregon/c24hy