Nature's Neighborhoods Photos

Sorry it's taken so long to get these up. Enjoy the photos!


To see the captions, move your cursor over the white balloon bubble on the bottom.


Miss Caryn

Nature's Neighborhoods Days 4 & 5

It is hard to believe that our 5 days of camp have already ended. I think we had the best weather week I've had at a summer camp in a looooooong time, so it allowed us to do some really good stuff.

Highlights of day 4, our wetland/marsh day:

• a morning full of marsh exploration-we used dipnets to catch a bunch of marsh critters, which include tadpoles, sticklebacks(a type of fish), water striders, a giant water bug, water boatmen, backswimmers, a caddisfly larva, midge larva and water mites. Many of these critters eventually turn into flying aquatic insects, but spend the majority of their lives in the water in larval or nymph stages.



• We got a chance to journey as a water droplet through the various places water exists on earth in a game called 'The Incredible Journey'



• We did a watercolor painting of a habitat to camouflage an animal in.



• We discussed all the good things marshes do for the earth and all its inhabitants during marsh metaphors and then took a stroll on the boardwalk through the heart of the cattail marsh here, while learning about cattails and a bully plant competing with it, called phragmites



• A short discussion of water tension and some of the properties of water. The campers then jumped into designing their own water strider, which actually walks on water.

Day 5 was our grassland day/camper's choice. In the morning we finished up a few craft projects, then headed out to our mounds/grassland area and caught a variety of different grassland inhabitants including spiders, beetles, bees, grasshoppers, a ladybug, a praying mantis, leafhoppers and host of other unusual insects that Miss Lauren and I just didn't know the names for. For campers choise, we played another round of the very popular fish migration game, and spent most of the afternoon fishing. We ended up catching 7 fish, which were a combination of bluegill and pumpkinseeds. We then took our last short hike together to the top of the mounds and got a nice group photo together with beautiful Lake Erie as a backdrop. Look for another post early next week with a slideshow of Nature's Neighborhoods photos!

We are so lucky to have this wonderful natural ecology of the lake and so many cool habitats at Tifft. I hope you all get a chance to come visit again and just get out and enjoy the beautiful outdoor summer sights and sounds around your neighborhoods. It will be gone before we know it, so have a great rest of the summer!

Miss Caryn

Nature's Neighborhoods Day 3

Campers' Family and Friends-
Day 3 was a gloriously beautiful day and we took full advantage. Our first mission was to work with Mr. Dave, our ecologist on planting trees. The campers planted 12 trees today, but it wasn't just planting. The campers had to dig out the holes, put some compost in, place the tree in the hole, repack the soil around it and we added a little alfalfa meal on top for some extra nutrients for the trees. The campers will be able to tell you all about what the soil is like around Tifft's forest.
Here is a picture of the campers and Mr. Dave after all their hard work.

Some other highlights of the day include: a binocular hike in search of animals using trees as habitats and actually observing a specific tree to find animals using it as a home, for food or water, making an origami bunny, working on a tree picture, using a tracing of each camper's arm for the trunk of their tree and playing "What Time is it Mr Fox?" and a forest habitat game.

We also had some good wildlife sightings, which include a young groundhog, a fawn, an adult deer, cedar waxwings, ladybugs and a gosling with its parent geese.

Tomorrow we journey onto the marsh habitat and I'm sure another great day!

Miss Caryn :)

Nature's Neighborhoods Days 1 and 2

Campers' Family and Friends-

Nature's Neighborhoods camp is off to a great start! We are a small group but we love to explore and observe and we've seen a lot of cool things.

Below are just some of the highlights of what we've done and seen over the last two days:

• explored the 3 different habitats of Tifft on a morning hike (you'll have to ask your campers what the habitats are!)


• saw a beaver dam and an abandoned beaver lodge


• saw a plethora of different types and sizes of bugs -our highlight was the young praying mantis Elena spotted amidst the gravel in the parking lot (photos will be forthcoming)


• catbirds calling and eating


• our resident geese group


• lots of frogs and turtles out at the marsh


• an unusual fight between an osprey and a heron-the heron was perched in a dead snag and the osprey just kept flying in circles, each time trying to knock the heron from the branch it was perched in


• a whole morning of fishing, with catches of rock bass and bluegill


• We have also played some games which include: Everybody's It, A Bee Nectar Game, Moose, Morph (a nature version of rock/paper/scissors), Lame Duck, a fish migration board game (which was very dramatic this afternoon)


• Identifying different aquatic habitats and using a dichotomous key (two different versions)


• We also started "developing" some waterfront property for an activity later this week.

Tomorrow we will be meeting our ecologist, Dave Spiering, and helping him and our seasonal biotech, Andrew, plant some new trees and water them and explore more about the forest here at Tifft.

Thanks again for your support and I look forward to 3 more days of exploration!

Miss Caryn

Mini-Beasts photos

ENJOY THE PHOTOS! To see the captions, move cursor arrow over bottom of slideshow and click on white bubble below photo

Mini-Beasts Camp Day 3

Mini-Beasts Campers' Family and Friends-

Day 3 was filled with another day of fun as we finished our Mini-Beasts camp!

• We finished up our "Twist an Insect" crafts that create crazy mixed up parts of a stag beetle, bee, house fly and cricket.



• We took a metamorphosis hike, looking for insects in different stages of their lifecycle (we saw the ladybug larva, pupa and adult again)



• Our hike led into our dip-netting activity. We were at the north end of the marsh looking for macroinvertebrate mini-beasts-most of which are immature stages of insects. During this exploration, we found sticklebacks (a marsh fish), newly hatched tadpoles, lots of snails, and the following insects-a caddisfly larva, a red threadworm, a leech, water boatmen and backswimmers.



• On our walk back for lunch, we stumbled upon a basketball-sized snapping turtle walking along a grassy trail. That was a real treat!



• And to top that off, we saw a mother deer and her fawn walk across the trail just a few minutes later!



• After all that excitement, we watched a bit of a cool movie called Metapmorphoses during lunch while resting up for the rest of the day. We watched a caterpillar hatch, a long train of caterpillars travel across the land and a ladybug/ant showdown.



• We read a few bug poems and then headed outside for a game called Clothespins and another called Everyone's It with our new energy from lunch.



• A climbing spider craft was next up, then a short spiderweb hike at the marsh.



• Our spider snack was a lot of fun to make, using cream cheese/peanut butter, some pretzel sticks, sunflower seeds and Ritz crackers; we even got our pictures taken by a photographer for the Buffalo News for next year's summer camp special.

I really had a super time working with each of these campers and hope that they had a great experience. 3 days isn't nearly enough time to explore Mini-Beasts properly, but hopefully it made them more curious about the mini-beasts around them and the wonderful natural world we live in! Photos of our adventures will be posted over the weekend too!

Continue to foster that curiosity in your children and don't be a stranger to Tifft!

Have a great summer!

Miss Caryn

Mini-Beasts Camp Days 1 and 2

Mini-Beasts Campers' Family and Friends-

The last two days have been filled with exploration of the mighty mini-beasts that call Tifft Nature Preserve home.

Some of the highlights of the last two days are as follows:

• doing a bug investigation in search of 16 different kinds of mini-beasts (we found 15 of 16)


• observing worms and their behaviors


• going on a ladybug search, as part of The Lost Ladybug Project, part of a citizen scientist program sponsored by Cornell University


• making edible worms and ladybugs


• making worm paintings, bug amplifiers and origami ladybugs


• setting mini-beast traps made from plastic bottles and bananas, halves of grapefruit, and a sugaring trap comprised of a mixture of very ripe bananas and brown sugar (which we painted on trees using our hands...sticky but lots of fun!)
  


• playing games like the ladybug race, BUGS (our version of SPUD) and Bug Mix-Up


• enjoying picnic lunches in the beautiful summer weather

I have enjoyed getting to know each of the campers and it is hard to believe that we have one more day before we say good-bye.
I know we'll have another great and fun day again tomorrow!

Miss Caryn