Today we had a big and busy day! Upon arrival we practiced our skill of scientific drawing with some samples of mushrooms. We practiced how to color match, to label our drawings with important information such as gills, or crowns, and to drawing to scale. There were some unique mushrooms to draw, and some of us also worked on IDing them too.

We planned our day during morning meeting and after snack started our mission. First we played some games in the field like “kids from mars” and Park Ranger. We then gathered supplies to take to Beaver Pond for some scooping and investigating. We caught over 20 eastern newts (WOW) and some other macroinvertebrates too. We also noticed some tracks in the mud and investigated who made them. DO you know?

After time at beaver pond we introduced the idea that each month we will be doing a conservation action at our center to help wildlife and our space. Today and in Mondays to follow we are cleaning out the bird houses. We discussed how important it is to clean our bird houses in the fall to make sure they are ready for the spring. You can learn more about it here. To be safe we all found a long stick to use to clean our the nests. We cleared out all the nests at Peeper Pond and next week will do the ones by the sugarhouse and then finally get up to the office to clean those too. Not only is this important for us, but it is a great thing for the birds who need these spots for their nests in the future.

In the afternoon we went to the brook and unlike last where we caught a fish in the last 30 seconds, we caught over 15 darter fish (still yet to be identified). These are not minnows, but a small species of fish and move and dart very quickly in streams and brooks.

We had a shorter period of time to journal today, but we will have more next week!