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Nature Detective

Many animals go about their business under cover of darkness (if they're nocturnal), or cautiously, if they're out and about in the daylight (diurnal). We may miss seeing the animals but, instead, see signs that they have been there - a pile of droppings, a track in the sand, a clump of hair snagged on a branch, chew marks on a tree trunk, or scattered feathers on the ground. All of these signs are clues that an animal has eaten or been eaten, fought, died or just ambled by. Take a walk with your child detective and see how many of the following clues you can find. Check sandy trails or the muddy edges of streams for animal footprints first thing in the morning. Inspect the sandy mound near a gopher tortoise burrow for tracks from the tortoise, mouse, snake or insect inhabitants. Find where a sapsucker has drilled into the bark of living trees and left lines of small holes. Discover the remains of a squirrel's hunt for pine seeds - a scattering of discarded pine cone scales and half-eaten cones.

A good resource is the Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior by: Donald and Lillian Stokes. This is a fabulous guide for parents to use with children.