It was wonderful to be back again after the week away. We were welcomes to Audubon with some fresh snow and amazing sunshine. To start off our day we worked on more of our tracking skills. We have this amazing board that is a snapshot of a snowy ground with a series of tracks on it showcasing the pattern and the prints. Our task was to match the animal card with their print on the board. With help from the whole group, we successfully matched everyone correctly and discuss our reasoning for the card placement too. We shared why we thought they matched up bring up the size, the print, if nails prints were there, that pattern for the print trail too, etc. It was so great to see how we are growing in our winter tracking knowledge.
After enjoying snack on the porch watching the chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, and tufted titmice at the feeders we began our journey to explore Beaver Pond. On the hike down to the pond we were noticing so many different tracks on and off trail and making educated guessed of who has been there. Once at the pond I went out with my poking stick to see if the ice was strong and safe enough. I was able to see that the ice was more than 4 inches thick, which is plenty safe for us to be on. We also discussed our safety protocol for the ice to be extra safe. On the ice we looked at some tracks that were a little snow covered before we began on making a skating rink! Together as a team we worked on clearing off the ice enough so that we could skate on it, and after a while we made a clearing big enough for us all to enjoy. On our way back we stopped by the brook to see what it’s setting was like. We quietly walked over and noticed that it sounded different, instead and rushing and moving a lot, it was trickling and more muted in sound. We discussed this may be due to the ice covering it and taking away from of the sound.
After lunch we went to measure our snow board that was set up 2 weeks before. Every week we will measure how much snow has accumulated over the weekend that I will write in a report on the CoCoRaHS website. You can set up your own snow and rain gauge station at our home too! We measured that there was about 2 inches of new snow. We then cleared off the snow so we can record the new accumulated as the week goes on.
In the afternoon we enjoyed some snow exploration time. We went sledding down the hill together and that made us smile and laugh a lot! We explore the snow around us and what fun we could have, from belly sliding like a penguin, so being artic foxes in the snowy world. It’s such a joy to see everyone play with each other and communicate together too!
