Things to See and Do at Hidden Oaks
Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale Community Park has interactive natural and cultural exhibits, live animal displays, a puppet stage, a resource library, restrooms, and an auditorium. Outside discoveries include a pond, woodland trails, creeks, butterfly gardens, a rain garden, a playground, an unstructured woodland play area, a picnic area, ball fields, and the Fred M. Packard Center. The pond is a particularly good place to see frogs when they spawn in early spring. There’s a naturalist available during the nature center’s open hours.
We recommend Nature Playce as the perfect playce to introduce the youngest members of your family to nature. It’s a classic go-outside-and-play opportunity.
Wildlife seen in the park includes red and grey foxes, white-tailed deer, gray squirrels, black squirrels, flying squirrels, raccoons, coyote, house mice, white-footed mice, common moles and voles, and amphibians, including wood frogs, American toads, northern red backs, and yellow spotted and marble salamanders. Snakes identified in the park include eastern rat, garter, brown, worm and earth. None of those are venomous. Hidden Oaks is home to more than 120 bird species, including pileated, red bellied, downy, hairy and northern flicker woodpeckers, tanagers, migrating warblers, cardinals, blue jays, red shouldered and broadwing hawks, and an occasional bald eagle.
