Kelsey, the youth naturalist, and I led a group of five kids on a nature hike this morning, mainly looking for interesting bugs. We scored. Each kid had a bug jar with built-in magnifier. We tipped over a rusty piece of tin that looked like it had been there for years, and underneath we found a great carpenter ant nest. The kids caught a few in order to watch them close up, and watched the others scramble to carry their eggs to a new hideout. We then replaced the ants and their cover, figuring they would soon recover from the disturbance. It was great to watch the kids satisfy their curiosity about ants rather than rush to crush them all. I suspect that more than one of these kids will start an ant farm at home, and maybe become a biologist some day. We checked out a couple of aquatic habitats and saw some water striders, damsel flies, and tiny fish, but didn't catch anything aquatic. Finally, the climax of the trip - we searched for and found the wonderful Goldenrod Crab Spider on Yarrow. In fact, when one of the kids caught one with his bug jar he discovered he had caught two! We watched them for a while then released them. When we got back to camp, I showed the kids photos (that appeared here earlier) of a Goldenrod Crab Spider in the act of capturing a bee or a bee mimic. Experiences like this can help prevent arachnophobia and get kids to see the value of spiders in the ecosystem.
Kelsey, the youth naturalist, and I led a group of five kids on a nature hike this morning, mainly looking for interesting bugs. We scored. Each kid had a bug jar with built-in magnifier. We tipped over a rusty piece of tin that looked like it had been there for years, and underneath we found a great carpenter ant nest. The kids caught a few in order to watch them close up, and watched the others scramble to carry their eggs to a new hideout. We then replaced the ants and their cover, figuring they would soon recover from the disturbance. It was great to watch the kids satisfy their curiosity about ants rather than rush to crush them all. I suspect that more than one of these kids will start an ant farm at home, and maybe become a biologist some day. We checked out a couple of aquatic habitats and saw some water striders, damsel flies, and tiny fish, but didn't catch anything aquatic. Finally, the climax of the trip - we searched for and found the wonderful Goldenrod Crab Spider on Yarrow. In fact, when one of the kids caught one with his bug jar he discovered he had caught two! We watched them for a while then released them. When we got back to camp, I showed the kids photos (that appeared here earlier) of a Goldenrod Crab Spider in the act of capturing a bee or a bee mimic. Experiences like this can help prevent arachnophobia and get kids to see the value of spiders in the ecosystem.
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