Back at Audubon for our second week, and another beautiful day we have to spend in nature. As we arrived Naomi and I set up an alphabet scavenger hunt, the goal was to find something that is found in nature and is naturally occurring in nature that starts with every letter of the alphabet. We found Acorn of A, leaf for L, rock for R, and so much more. For the letters we couldn’t find something for we discussed if we were somewhere else or in a different season would we be able to find that letter and what would it be, like ice for I or Zebra for Z.  

After morning meeting and snack we needed to move our bodies, so we played a few rounds of Freeze Tag, surprisingly it plays like a name game when we have to call out the names of who needs to unfreeze us or to help someone who is frozen. We then had a big day ahead of us visiting similar places to last week and taking to notice some differences in those spaces. 

First, we visited to Sherman Hollow Brook which was still very low but help enough water for critters to still thrive. We search up and down the brook, some of us caught some frogs, others caught over 40 water striders, and we saw a baby snapping turtle but couldn’t catch it. We also were able to catch a Dusky salamander and few dragonfly nymphs as well.  We then took our nets to Beaver Pond. This week instead of the massive tadpoles we saw last week all the tadpoles were about ¼ of the size! We caught a could green frogs, over 30 tadpoles, a crayfish, a brook trout, water boatmen, and a few leeches too! Some of us also got a little dirty building mud towers and mud homes around the mudflat too. 

We enjoyed lunch and our book in the field and then played a few rounds of Park Ranger. We then went to our 3rd location for the day, Peeper Pond. We bought some insect sweep nets and some ID books and an enclosed container to put our flying critters. We swept through the field, trying to avoid the bees on the goldenrod. We caught a couple dragonflies that were red, which upon research I am learning could be a Scarlet Bluet and actually a damselfly. We also caught grasshoppers, a moth, and some beetles too! 

At the end of the day we wrapped up with our journal sit spots where we draw or wrote about something we experienced in nature today. Our final thing together was closing circle where we shared our favorite part of the day.