Kalvebod Faelled Vestamager

Give a kid a fish and you entertain him for a day; teach a kid to fish and you entertain him for a lifetime.

Imagine- just outside the hustle and bustle of the downtown wide open spaces, apple orchards, and tiny ponds. There is a place loaning (for free) nets and buckets and laminated ID pages filled with pictures of pond critters. The kids are going wild. Saule and I took off our shoes pulled up our pants, and waded in in search of water bugs, snails, frogs, and fish. The excitement in the kids eyes, the way they chased each other around the banks, got muddy, and shared their catch with us was fantastic! It reminded me of when I was little and used to play for hours in our pond in the yard. How much fun we had. 

That's what is happening today, and everyday at Kalvebod Faelled Vestamager. This wonderful park is a huge expanse of open space just a short peddle from the airport and the downtown. Fields, orchards, and ponds are left in their most natural, sometimes overgrown state leaving room for lots of waterfowl, birds, deer, and other animals. This is a birding hot spot, complete with guides, blinds, and other friendly birders!

There is a nature center "Naturcenter Vestamager" which has a fantastic array of exhibits about Danish wildlife and ecology, a natural playground built from tree limbs, a child size stork nest up a ladder, a chicken coup complete with about 2 dozen hens and chicks.  There is also a bee hive with a glass viewing window, a "fox den" complete with props, rooms filled with stuffed animals (real ones), and all of this is housed in the middle of an enormous field in a lovely open glass sided building. There is a scope set up with bird books nearby. 

The park is huge and flat and stretches as far as you can see. There is no way we could explore it all in just one day. So at Saule's request we are going back tomorrow.