DECATUR - Saturday's cloudy, cold weather kept most of the animals at Scovill Zoo snug inside their habitats, but it didn't stop the Easter Bunny from making his regular visit.

Nor did it keep cousins Jessica and Jonathon Skinner, both 9, of Long Creek away from their usual positions behind the tape along the sidewalk through Scovill Gardens. How many times had the pair picked up plastic eggs at the zoo's annual Critter Egg Hunt?

"Too many times," said Jessica, who wore a long-sleeved, hooded shirt and bounced from one foot to the other to stay warm.

Then they were off, trampling the moist earth with hundreds of other small feet and scooping up colorful plastic eggs in the blink of an eye.

Scovill Zoo ordinarily opens for the season Easter weekend and offers families who participate in the Critter Egg Hunt free admission, but not this year.

"A lot of our animals are tropical," said Zoo Director Mike Borders. "We have to wait a little bit longer to open for the health and safety of our animals."

The zoo is scheduled to open April 9.

But Borders didn't think Easter's early arrival lowered participation in the egg hunt. "Attendance is comparable to what we would have on a sunny, warm day, but it's neither one," he said.

Temperatures in the low 40s did cause a few children to miss out on the chance to pick up plastic eggs as their parents delayed their arrival until closer to the hunt's 2 p.m. start and the zoo's parking lot filled up at 1:45 p.m.

"Everybody came at the same time," said Elana Studebaker, who shuttled latecomers to the zoo from overflow parking at Calvary Baptist Church.

Zoo volunteers, however, had plenty of treat bags for everyone, having prepared 1,000.

"You don't want to run out," Borders said. "That would be bad."

Families lingered to ride the carousel, play on the playground or pet the four animals brought out for the event - a ferret named Boogie, a chinchilla named Lani, a rabbit named Twitch and a miniature horse named Beau.

But the zoo's parking lot emptied out almost as fast as it filled up.

Nine lucky children walked away with large Easter baskets after finding one of the 10 plastic eggs that had numbers on them. Among them was 5-year-old Athena Pajer, 5, of Decatur, who dressed for her first Critter Egg Hunt in a tan and orange dinosaur raincoat.

"Dinosaurs are my favorite," Athena said.

Theresa Churchill can be reached at tchurchill@;herald-review.com or 421-7978.