Animal Tracks

The other day while walking in the woods I stumbled across an area completely covered with complex patterns of animal tracks. The conditions were perfect to see the tracks, since the older snow had hardened, from exposure to sunlight and then re-freezing, and a fresh dusting had just fallen the night before. You should have seen me bounding around in knee-deep snow chasing after the new tracks I saw!

I saw many MANY snowshoe hare tracks. I could tell this is what they were by looking at the pattern of the tracks. Hares have much larger back feet than front feet. When they hop, their front feet land together and then their back feet land IN FRONT of the front feet. So the hare in the picture below is hopping to the left.

This hare is hopping toward us.

I could tell it was a hare and not a rabbit based on the size - hares are bigger! The rear foot of a rabbit can be from 1-3 inches long, where the hare can be 3-6 inches long.

The other really cool thing tracks can show you is what the animals did while they were going about their business. In the above picture you see a hare track that leads to a spot where the hare stayed for a little while (see how there is a big spot where the snow was packed down). What was the hare doing? I can't say for sure, but I know it spent some time here before continuing on.

I saw more than just hare tracks, I saw human tracks, bird tracks, dog tracks, and skiier tracks as well. Some tracks I wasn't able to identify, such as the ones below. I do know they are some sort of rodent because I can see the tail dragging between tracks!

There is a quarter for scale.

 

These rodent tracks end at this tree, so the
rodent's home must be under the snow here.

Due to the size of this next track, and the fact that there are little claw indentations, I say that it is a sort of weasel. If I'd had a book on me at the time then I might have been able to narrow it down further.

A weasel moves in a bounding pattern. This means that when the weasel leaps its front feet land first, then its back feet land in the same track as the front feet before it launches forward again.

They can get really good distance!

As I continued walking, I saw another track that seemed to appear out of nowhere. At first all I saw was another hare track, but suddenly a short, much smaller hare track appeared beside it. Then it vanished again!

Until I looked closer!

A baby hare was following an adult hare, hopping in the adult hare's tracks!

The last type of track I saw that day showed a walking pattern. If only I'd seen a porcupine track! Then I'd have seen all 4 types of track patterns - walking, hopping, bounding, and waddling.

See how the track is almost single-file? That's characteristic of a walking animal.

Because of the 4 toes and arrow-head like foot pad, I'd say that this track is canine.
Due to the size, I'd say fox.

But that was not the end of my tracking experience. The next day we went out to a different part of same natural area and found these beauties!
  

I put myself in for scale.

Based on size and surrounding habitat, my best guess is that these were made by a young Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, I am not well-versed in palentology, so I will have to do more digging to determine which dinosaur made these prints. 

Next time you're out walking in the snow, what do you notice about your own tracks? Can you tell which ones are yours from the tread on your shoes? If you jump, or run, or turn around does that change how your track looks? I'd love to know what you find!

Milton Camp

We had an amazing week! I ran a "From the Ground Up" program in Milton, and we learned and explored and played all over the park. As the name (and previous version of the program) suggests, we started out on the first day talking about soil, geology, and hydrology, worked up to plants and trees, then animals, then weather and astronomy. We looked at how each builds on the foundations provided by the other aspects of the natural world.

We climbed a few trees that blocked the trail

The tidbits that stuck with the children during this week made me smile. For example, after discussing soil layers the first day, all week any leaves were called O layer and any bare soil was the A layer. "Look Lisa, we're walking on the A layer!"

Someone dug this trench and so we were able to see soil layers!

This group's creativity astounded me. I taught them the vocab word "snag" (Remember? A favorite of the little lady's.) Then we reached a fork in the trail, I asked them to "hang a right," and they countered with "don't you mean snag a right?" And when I asked them not to touch something, like an animal that's just minding its own business, they said "Yeah, we should leaf it alone!"

They also liked to call the puddles we passed "frog mansions." I loved that. We spooked a frog into the water, and then found it under the mud. It was amazing, the frog stayed stock-still, even when we were pushing it through the water. It was firmly dedicated to pretending to be a rock. I hadn't seen that before!

They all loved to be able to identify and use jewelweed, because it's so useful if you get a cut, sting, or poison ivy exposure in the woods. Each of them was able to identify it by the end of the second day.

Rubbing jewelweed on a mosquito bite for relief

I had planned on spending most of the time outside, and then some weather happened. Thankfully we had some activities that were better suited to indoors, such as astronomy. I had a map of the stars visible in summer in Vermont for each of them. They used it to design their own constellations that they could actually find in the night sky!

After this activity, one of the girls drew her own star map

and asked ME to design constellations for it.

I also have a secret weapon for making rainy days run smoother, his name is Ned. 

Ned is my personal pet, I just got him this year (he's probably only two years old!) When I asked each of the kids what their favorite part of the week was, they each said, without hesitation, "Holding Ned!"

Another favorite activity was playing "Star-Nosed Mole." While we played a lot of games and activities this week, the kids asked to play a few rounds of this game every day! One girl really loved the game because she was "really into worms." I've never heard that one before, but, whatever floats your boat!

 Look at how smug that worm is, safe from the blind mole (as long as he's quiet!)

The group dynamic really affects the way a lesson goes. I always have a lesson plan, but I stay very fluid so if the kids show particular interests then that's what the lesson will become. For example, we spent a good chunk of time discussing wild edible foods. One of the kids even taught me that you can make a dessert out of the seed pods of timothy grass! We found a lot of wood sorrel, which looks like clovers only has heart-shaped leaves and tastes a bit lemony. We also saw a lot of strawberry plants (with no fruit yet) and blackberries!

The whole week was full of special discoveries and hypotheses:

We saw the difference between sapwood and heartwood as displayed 

where the sap leaked out of this white pine when it was cut. 

We smelled wintergreeny "sweet" (black) birch 

(and tasted it too!)

We saw this GIANT snail!

 (close-up)

Other good finds include a beaver stump near the swamp, some insects with unbelievable coloration, and many, many red efts!

Milton Reconnaissance

The other day my friend (author of Lunches Fit For a Kid) came with me to investigate the trails at the park in Milton, so that I'll know where to go during my summer camp next week. It is a very interesting place,  and you'll see much more of it in the coming week I'm sure. Lots of different trees to talk about, ferns galore, and even some wildlife :)

Like this guy

We saw a few different American Toads (like that guy.) Common misconception: toads ARE frogs. We like to make the distinction that toads are more terrestrial, and they have drier, bumpy skin, but there is no difference according to the scientific family tree. They also don't have warts: their skin is supposed to be like that. The bumpiness helps break up their outline, so it's camouflage!

That bump behind its eye is a gland, not a wart.

While you can't get warts from touching toads, their sensitive skin can be harmed by your hands! I make it a point to never handle amphibians if I have sunblock or insect repellent or other harsh, chemical substances on my hands. The substances would enter their body easily through their super-absorptive skin and that would not make a happy little critter.

No toads were harmed in the making of this post. I've been trained in how to hold them, and I let him go right back where I found him :)

Local Motion Hike

On Saturday I led a family nature walk with Local Motion at Ethan Allen Park in Burlington, VT. Three lovely families joined us, with their five charming children. I knew I was with a great group when right off one little boy pointed at a Norway maple tree and said "Maple!" He later showed me that he knows oak as well, while looking at a dried leaf on the path.

Maple! 

First off we rolled over a log and found a spider, a worm, and a millipede. We also found and identified some poison ivy before we left the path, so everyone would know what not to touch. There aren't many things in Vermont woods that will hurt you, we are very lucky in that regard!

Examining a millipede

Right next to the poison ivy we found a sprig of jewelweed. This plant is so very useful, the juices in its leaves can even help poison ivy rashes, so you don't have to wait till you get home to start treating it if you're exposed. In my observation jewelweed tends to grow near the plants that cause the harm they can fix, like poison ivy and nettles. Nature is pretty amazing like that!

Pale jewelweed (old photo, it is not in bloom yet this time of year.)

Along the hike we looked at acorn caps from oak trees, and saw a squirrel that might be responsible for eating the acorn out of the cap. We went on a mini scavenger hunt and collected lots of dandelions. We also planted many dandelion seeds with our personal wind power!

Scavenger hunt and dandelion picking in a field

At a very exciting moment in the day, I spotted and caught a toad in the woods. Everyone got a chance to touch it with one finger.

Toad!

Then we finally made it up to the tower, I was so proud of how all those tiny legs walked the whole way. We had a nice rest and enjoyed the view before heading back down.

If you are interested, I have another post on a hike in Ethan Allen Park, with tower photos, that you can read here. I also talk more about jewelweed in a post from a hike up Mount Philo last fall, that post is here.

Backyard Wanderings

We wanted to see what new things are popping up for spring, so we took a short walk in the woods behind our house. We saw a few bright green leaves just starting to emerge, and it's early days, so there will be many more exciting things to post in the weeks to come. Here are some pictures of our adventure! 

The young gentleman was very excited hopping about the rocky stream bed. 

To his credit, he didn't get his feet wet!

 We saw some evidence of benthic macroinvertibrates, like this muddy home.

 Awesome snag!

 This tiny cave is under a muddy overhanging bank. I liked how the water dripping down gave a miniature, less-permanent example of stalagmite and stalactite formation.

 We tried to see if we could place the wood chips we found on the ground back in the woodpecker holes.

 The young gentleman and a GIANT white pine tree

I did see one excellent example for tree ID. I found a white birch (also known as a paper birch) with its characteristic peeling bark:

And right next to it I saw a yellow birch, with its...characteristic peeling bark:

I asked the young gentleman if he thought the trees might be similar. I mentioned how one tree was white, and the other was yellow. "If the white one is a white birch, what might the yellow one be?" "Yellow birch!" "Bingo!"

The branches were all too high for me to show him one of the nicest defining characteristics of a yellow birch - the wintergreen smell when you scratch the bark on a live twig. You can also find that scent on black (sweet) birch, but not on white birch or grey birch.

It was a very fun short walk, I can't wait to see how our little woods change as spring continues to emerge!

Ethan Allen

Yesterday we decided the weather was too nice, it was time time to take this kids for a hike. We have a lot of plans for exploring different Vermont mountains when the spring actually comes, so we were excited to get started by taking even a short hike now. We went to Ethan Allen Park in Burlington.

The new tree of this hike was black cherry: we saw two excellent specimens very soon after we entered the park. The bark of the black cherry tree is very distinctive, making it easy to identify even at this time of year (before the leaves are out.) Some people say the bark reminds them of burnt potato chips. Can you see it?

Just in case you don't have me around to confirm: cherry trees also have a distinctive, almondy smell (not a pleasant one though) if you scratch-and-sniff a living twig. And the black cherry leaves have a brown fuzz running down the center of the underside of the leaf. This is a useful identification tool once the leaves come out. (I'll get you a good picture of that in a later post, promise!)

As we walked along, the little lady pointed out to us an American beech tree that she recognized from our Snake Mountain hike. She informed us that she'd been showing beech trees to her classmates at school, telling them how they can know what kind of tree it is. She remembered that beech trees don't loose their leaves as easily as other deciduous trees, so often you'll see them clinging to their leaves all winter long. When I reminded her of the smooth grey bark, she went to a nearby witch hazel plant, saying, "This has smooth bark, is it a beech?" So I showed her the most distinctive part of a beech tree: the bud.

Some people will call this a "cigar bud" to help them remember. See how long and pointy it is? It almost looks like a thorn when you look quickly. And the light brown is a distinctive feature as well.

Back to the hike: one of the nice things about Ethan Allen Park is that it has a tower! During the summer you can go up the stairs and get a great view, right now it's locked up for the winter.

Still a pretty cool tower! We're checking out a white pine though.

As we left the woods, the sun was just starting to set. A perfect after school hike, just in time to get home for dinner :)

Rocks and Ice

It's around the time of year for certain creatures to begin stirring again. I walked along a little stream behind my house today in hopes of finding some spring salamanders. I turned over many rocks to no avail, but it is still early days! I'll go out again soon and may have better luck.

I did find some very interesting critters (actual term: benthic macroinvertebrates) under those rocks though. Most were different kinds of insect larva, and scurried very quickly once I removed their shelter. I did get a few good shots, like this aquatic sowbug:

(the one critter who was not an insect larvae)

Then I hiked through the woods, where the most prominent finds were fungi, like this cluster of last-year's mushrooms:

see the holes where the spores were released?

As I neared the swamp that my brook pours into, I started seeing more and more evidence of our beaver population. The little lady mentioned wanting to see what a beaver-downed tree looks like (how you can tell it from a human-downed tree.) I guess I won't have to go far to show her!

I just love the way the remaining stump looks, with the wavy pattern of the gnaw marks. 

And finally I made it out to the swamp. I was glad after such a warm winter (and on a very warm day) to find it completely iced over. And the ice was THICK.

Walking on the ice was a little unnerving, the top layer was kinda slushy from a very sunny day. I wouldn't have gone out on it except there were some very nice ice-fishermen nearby (proving the ice was thick enough for human weight and providing security that someone was there to fish me out if it wasn't.)

This fishing hole was a few days old.

I love the way this bubble looks under the ice, with the crack in the ice it's a little like a full moon over a mountain.