DETROIT: Belle Isle Nature Zoo

Hidden away on Belle Isle is a tiny little Nature Zoo which is run by the Detroit Zoo. I thought I'd write this post as a somewhat comparison and show and tell about American garden birdies after we spent a good while watching some birds having a feed. In America you'll find the normal sparrows and your starlings, but the other birdies they are bigger and brighter. Even the traditional Robin in the US is the size of a blackbird. 

The common grackle is the size of your blackbird and is similar in colouring expect the Grackle has a gorgeous blue/green/purple colouring to it's head. Apparently they tend to steel food from other birds and are more likely to feed from the floor.

American woodpeckers are a lot easier to find and spot when you're out in the woods compared to my former life in the countryside of Yorkshire. This a red bellied woodpecker is one spending most of it's time in southern Canada and the northeastern parts of the US. Not too sure why it's called red bellied as the redness is found on it's head, but there you go.  House sparrows are house sparrows were ever you are!

Pretty Blue Jays, apparently have a bit of an angry side to them with their lavender blue colouring and white underside. Being the size of blackbirds, maybe a little bigger they are easy to spot. They have a bad reputation of destroying other birdies nests and eggs.

Squirrels are pretty easy to find here in Michigan. They tend be a lot darker in colour too - in some cases actually being black. We get loads coming across the lawns in front of our apartment. 

At the Nature Zoo they also have this really neat two sided display connected to the outside of the building were bee's can fly along into and visibly show you making honeycombs. I even spotted the Queen bee. The rest of the Nature Zoo was filled with the typical species you might come across in the wilds of Michigan from Salamanders, turtles, fishies and frogs.

After spying their little allotment patch, they have a great little trail through fields of wild flowers and woodland around the nature centre too and what appears out into grasslands. We didn't have the best of footwear to be slogging around in overground grasses but it's certainly somewhere to wander back too.