During our natural art project week, clay, grasses, flowers, leaves, and rocks were our featured materials. The week’s adventure started with a last-minute location change, when our original location was infested with stealthy mosquitoes. The Galisteo Basin Preserve proved to be an excellent alternative, and the kids enjoyed collecting clay, which they then turned into little pinch pots. Tuesday was spent keeping cool at the Beaver Ponds. After discovering a particularly deep spot in the river, we all enjoyed taking a dunk before heading back to work on nature collages. On Wednesday, surrounded by croaking frogs and soaring dragonflies, we made grass headbands, bracelets, and rings by the pond at Las Golondrinas. We ended our week flying our handmade kites and painting flagstone with rock paint. The hummingbirds made beautiful natural creations all while enjoying the splendor of the outdoors.
Looking at skulls, pelts, and tracks, the Hummingbirds learned about the amazing animals of New Mexico. On Monday and Tuesday, the heatwave pushed to the shade of trees, while we got to look at real animal pelts! Wednesday was beaver day, where we dressed up a counselor and brave volunteer as beavers to learn about the many adaptations beavers have that help them survive. Then we headed to the Beaver Ponds, where we learned more about how beavers impact the environment around them. Thursday was a special treat, when we got to visit the Española Wildlife Center, a place that takes in injured animals and rehabilitates them before re-releasing them to the wild. We got to see a number of birds, including a Red-tailed Hawk, Burrowing Owl, Osprey, chatty Magpie, Turkey Vulture and a hybrid Goshawk-Peregrine Falcon. Several of the kids got a treat when a handler took their Bald Eagle out of its cage, and were able to see it spread its wings. Once we finished at the Wildlife Center, we ran to Shidoni for a quick dip in the river to cool down before heading home.
The Eagles enjoyed a week of bugs, hiking, and capture the flag! On Monday, we explored the Beaver Ponds, finding numerous fossils and making hematite face paint. Back at Fort Marcy, we set up our bug traps in the arroyo. Deer Creek was our destination on Tuesday, where we swam in the pools and scrambled up rocks. On Wednesday, we enjoyed a hike through the trees. We practiced our orientation skills, using a map and compass and by identifying landmarks. Bug week ended on Thursday with hiking to a gushing waterfall, identifying poison ivy, making cone and stick boats, and playing in the mud.
Bugs, bugs, bugs! The Owls dug in the mud and scavenged through grasses, spotting many spiders, beetles, flies, and butterflies. On Monday, we explored the Beaver Ponds, and we made potato and cup bug traps, which we hid in the arroyo next to Fort Marcy. Every morning, we checked our bug traps to see what we caught. Commonly we caught many ants, but some managed to catch ground beetles. On Tuesday, the Harrell House Bug Museum and Science shop shared their collection of bugs with us. In the collection, we saw living black widows, tarantulas, vinegaroons, and many more. Wednesday was our mud day as the Owls dug into the moist dirt, finding many worms. We finished our week hiking with gnats, spiders, and moths. Our week was Bug-tastic!
The Hummingbirds had lots of fun making bug traps and exploring nature and bugs in their own habitat. On Tuesday, Wade Harrell from the Harrell House Bug Museum and Science shop shared his collection of bugs with us. In the collection, we saw living black widows, tarantulas, vinegaroons, and many more. We got muddy in the creek on Monday, explored the Beaver Ponds on Tuesday, hiked all the way to the pools at Deer Creek on Wednesday (wow!), and had a blast playing in the trees on Thursday! All in all it was a buggy and dirty week of fun!
The Beaver Ponds is a magical place to make forts, discover special creatures, find ancient fossils and make new friends!
Eagles were paired with Owls to study animal skulls. They had to decide, are they predator or prey? What do they eat? How’s their sense of smell or hearing? Then they would share their discoveries with the rest of the group.
Animal pelts are interesting to examine and touch too!
The Espanola Wildlife Center is a great place to see birds that you might not normally see.
Friday was a fun day of exploring the Santa Fe Ski Basin without any snow. The creek that flows down Easy Street is a great place to cool off.
The Secret Language of Birds is a new theme this year, and one which we LOVED! We talked about “what makes a bird and bird” by playing a True and False game with our bodies. Once we arrived at the Beaver ponds, everyone received their own bird behavior checklist and we talked about why birds perform each of the behaviors. We acted out the behaviors and had the campers guess which one we were doing. Before setting off, each buddy pair received a pair of binoculars to use during our hike. It was awesome to witness the kids focus and interest in finding birds and deciding which behavior they were engaged in. We saw lots of birds, some animal tracks, and found fossils as we hiked around the entire pond.
On Tuesday we ventured to Deer Creek after a story about birds and games at Fort Marcy.
The Owls (5-7 year olds), hiked, played, did sit spots and worked in their nature journals.
The Eagles did a big hike all the way to the pools where they had a chance to cool off in the icy cold water!
On Wednesday we talked about the five different voices of birds and the kids had a chance to act out the voices and talk about why birds will use each voice. We compared some of these to human behavior (i.e. juvenile begging!). On the Winsor Trail we had the opportunity to hear the bird language in real life and made educated guesses at what we thought the birds were saying to each other, or to other animals in the forest.
On Thursday we talked about some common birds and played games to learn what they are. Our adventure was to the Wildlife Center where we got to get up close to owls, hawks, eagles and some small mammals including fox and bobcat. It was fascinating to hear the stories about how the animals got there and how we can help keep them in the wild.
Tremendous trees and wonderful wildflowers were greeted by exceptional Eagles last week in the mountains. We “met” and identified evergreens and aspens, built shelters, found raccoon tracks at the beaver ponds, did some bouldering, bird watching and listening, discovered insects, made natural string, and played many games including a whole lot of Capture the Flag. From shelter building and learning about biomimicry, to flower pressing and hiking to the pools at Deer Creek, the Eagles had a tremendous time!
