Naturalist Pin

This is not very hard. It can be done as a winter project; my son did. Binoculars help for #4 and #7, but you can do without them.

#1. Keep an insect zoo that you have collected. Doing the old bugs-in-a-mayonnaise-jar with mesh or gauze over the mouth would have been so easy before frost, but my son had zero interest.

#2. Set up an aquarium or terrarium with animals or plants you have collected. See the handbook. The Shukaits once did terrariums with the den from clear 2-liter plastic Pepsi bottles. Peel off the label, slice open and fill with dirt and plants and maybe some seeds. Tape back up. You can do it with the bottle standing upright (make the bottom section about 3-4 inches high) or laying on its side if you have a way to keep it from rolling (make a base from a cardboard cereal box laid on its side, with curved cutouts to cradle the bottle; paint or paper it so it looks like a craft project.).

#3. Visit a museum of natural history, nature center, or zoo with your family, den or pack. Here are some places in our area:

#4. Watch for birds for 1 week. This may take longer. If you leave and come home in the dark, it's a problem that only spring's longer days will help. (Maybe your Scout can do it on Christmas Break or Thanksgiving if he's home then.) We put seed out for the birds, but it took a week and a half before one came to it. Then they came in flocks, but only on sunny days, not on cloudy ones when they couldn't see a predator bird's (hawk) shadow. The best luck attracting them was with sunflower seeds, especially black oilers, putting some on a table and some on the ground for ground feeders. The feeder was an old food service tray, nothing fancy. Here are some winter birds that came, not necessarily all in the 1-week timeframe:

Slate-colored (Northern) Junco Blue jay
Purple finch (they aren't purple) Cardinal
Chickadee Nuthatch
Titmouse

You may also see these birds in winter: starling, mourning dove, woodpeckers (2 or 3 kinds), crows. In the sky and along roadsides you may see hawks, owls, and pheasants. In town you may see sparrows.

#5. Learn about the bird flyways closest to your home. Check the handbook or a bird book or field guide.

If you want to do a trip, you could go to Point Peelee National Park in Leamington, Ontario (about 1.5 hours away) in autumn to watch birds migrating across the Great Lakes at the narrowest point of Lake Erie. There's a big interpretive center and rangers to give talks. Also, there's a place near Point Peelee called Jack Miner's Bird Sanctuary, where migrating birds come in droves. You might also check out the Lake Erie Metropark Nature Center, which is good.

#6. Learn to identify poisonous plants and snakes in your area.

Since the poison ivy constantly crawls into my backyard, I firmly believe all children should know this plant in all its forms. It's a vine wrapped around trees, it's a 1 - 2 foot plant in the grass, on the forest floor, in abandoned fields, along roadsides, in the U-pick strawberry patch, on the Lake Michigan sand dunes, and everywhere along the Huron River. Migrating birds love it, because the white berries stay on the plant all winter and into spring when food is scarce. They deposit it in their droppings, then it grows by underground rhizomes, so you can't fully get it with chemicals. If it's in smoke, you breathe when somebody does a roadside ditch burning, you'll get a dangerous internal case in your lungs. Check a field guide for a good picture.

You are unlikely to ever see poison sumac, which also grows in our area, but stays in sunny swamps and bogs. The regular sumac along the road and in the woods isn't poisonous.

(Note: the county naturalist is the source of the following items for the list.) Other poisonous plants in our area could include Jimsonweed (the "loco" weed that cattle get into and that teenagers try for the hallucinations; it gets tall, grows in meadows and pastures, is spiny and has a large white summer flower); and the Horse Chestnut tree, also called a Buckeye, which does not produce real chestnuts and will give a bad stomach ache; some original farmsteads in this area planted these trees for shade. The red berries and leaves of native and ornamental yew trees and bushes (while currently being tried as a cancer drug) are a heart depressant that can kill a child. Ask county naturalist Matt Heumann for handouts he has written.

For poisonous garden plants, there's Lily of the Valley (death in 15 minutes from a swollen air pipe), foxglove (source of digitalis, which slows the heart) and monkshood. Not highly dangerous, but annoying, are plants in the garden that cause a phytoallergenic reaction in some people who handle them excessively and are exposed to bright sun; these include wild and domestic members of the carrot family, trumpet vine, and the paw paw. Poison Control at St. Joe's or U-M Hospital has a list of other plants.

The only poisonous snake in our area is the Massasauga Rattler. The rattle tells you immediately what it is if you encounter it. My son and I were surprised by one at Hudson Mills Metropark, and I have seen one at U-M Matthei Botanical Gardens. Both were sunning themselves in open spots on a hiking trail in a moist ground area. Get a picture from a reptiles and amphibians field book, a DNR poster, or wherever you can scare one up.

#7. Watch 6 wild animals in the wild. The easiest, surest bets are birds, squirrels, chipmunks, maybe rabbits, maybe fish. You have to get lucky for anything else.

The most fool-proof place I know to see animals (birds) at any time of year is Gallup Park in Ann Arbor (free). This is along the Huron River at Platt/Huron Parkway and Geddes just 1 mile north of the Council office (going north on Huron Parkway, go over the bridge across the river and turn left at the light onto Geddes; entrance is about 100 feet west, on the left, park in the first parking area, near the ponds). The ponds/river are open water year round here. All kinds of ducks, geese, swans and songbirds winter and summer here. Please don't feed them; let them stay wild. Watch your footing - they leave droppings all over. Binoculars and a bird book help. Here are some other nearby places:

The prison on Bemis Rd. west of Carpenter. Huge flock of geese, sometimes ducks.
Ypsilanti Township Civic Center. Pond in front of building has geese, swans, various ducks.
Anywhere on the Huron River with open water ponds in winter - try the park at Whittaker Road and I-94 with the boardwalk trail over the islands and through the marsh.

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