Can owls smell? What's the fastest animal on earth? Answers to these questions and more can be found at the new VINS Nature Center near Quechee Gorge, featuring a state-of-the-art raptor exhibit housing a collection of North America's finest birds of prey.

Daily programs are offered for visitors of all ages, including "Predators of the Sky," a unique flight program featuring several of VINS' most magnificent raptor residents. Visitors to the raptor exhibit will view the birds perhaps as never before, in soaring, roomy enclosures. Instead of looking from outside the structures to a darkened environment within, visitors will stand in the same light in which the birds exist.

Located on 47 quiet, forested acres, the VINS Nature Center also features walking trails along the Ottaquechee River; classrooms, and a nature shop featuring nature exploration equipment and fun and educational gifts and books.

The Nature Center is open seven days a week year round. From May 1st to October 31st, hours are 9 am to 5:30 pm. From November 1st to April 30th, hours are 10 am to 4 pm. The center will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Years Day. Admission prices are $8 for adults and $6.50 for children ages 3-16. Group rates are also available. Members of VINS are admitted for free.

VINS (the Vermont Institute of Natural Science) is a nonprofit , member-supported organization, founded in Woodstock in 1972 by a group of local citizens intent on improving the water quality of the Ottauquechee River. Headquartered in Woodstock, with regional offices in Montpelier and Manchester, Vermont, VINS offers educational programs that serve more than 20,000 adults and 35,000 students each year. VINS has long been a leading research center for the study of migratory songbirds, common loons, peregrine falcons, and other threatened or endangered species. Its wildlife services department has treated and released thousands of injured wild birds of all species.