Walking in a Swamp

Today we signed on to a new project. Many parents who homeschool have quite a bit of knowledge up their sleeves. One of our local parents has decided to share her environmental background with us in a series of monthly outings. It being spring, now is the time to look for emerging insects and larvae. The goal was to find dragonfly larvae but, as it transpired, the water was too warm and the wetland not healthy enough to support dragonflies. Your dragonfly, you see, is picky about its living arrangements.

Wetlands, even unhealthy ones, have other attractions, such as, say, blackflies. Today there were many blackflies but few were biting, they being still too confused to have worked out than human = bloodmeal!!

Half and hour or so spent bug hunting in a cedar swamp revealed: small millipedes, various spiders (small ones), a slug, an ant, beetles, a worm, and a winged insect that was not a blackfly.

Birds were abundant: a swan, redwing blackbirds, a turkey vulture, Canada Geese and mallards were in evidence.

The nature of Homeschooling frequently lends itself to a wide range of participants in any given activity. I love this aspect since all age groups usually find a niche in the outing and enjoy it on their own terms. Today we had young teen intent on fishing. He was quite happy to show the fish to the younger kids and had the "cool factor" down pat when he caught a fish and wrangled with the water snake for possession.

Our Environmentally Enabled Parent brought some lovely information about insects, bugs and metamorphosis for us to mull over at home. Our kids were too busy hunting to listen to an actual lesson on site. The entire exercise took about 2 hours and was never boring.

Today we sign into a new blog. It is our hope that it will grow and that all participants of the Naturalist Club will contribute. If you have thoughts about an outing, insights, musings, poetry, artwork or whatever then please share it. Also, if you go some place neat or discover something cool about this fantastic planet of ours then share it!