Today, we went on a nature hike with a purpose. The San Elijo Lagoon has a map for kids with a treasure hunt on the back. We joined some friends from our meetup group and had a ton of fun. The kids would probably never have been looking for so many different plants and animals without the help of their map. Even I learned some new plants - never heard of a lemonade berry bush before!
Eliza checking off the box when we saw some ducks.
Audrey tried to copy the older kids, but really just colored on her paper. She didn't care, and it was more important that she was seeing everything anyway.
There were lots of lizards! Thankfully the only snake we saw was behind glass inside the visitor's center.
Caterpillars weren't on the list, but the girls had fun finding lots of them too. They were all over in the trees!
Audrey happily running across the bridge!
Brooke and Eliza watching a butterfly that was flying all around us. I just barely got it, but its in the top right corner of the picture - orange, white and black. (you can click on the picture to enlarge it)
Brooke and Eliza running up the path back towards the visitor's center.
Audrey was pretty tired by the time we finished, but she was a trooper. Did I mention that she pulled her braid out in the car on the way there, hence the hair in her face in all the pictures AGAIN. Grrr!
We went up to the second floor of the visitor's center when we got back and checked everything out from the observation deck. The ocean is off in the distance.
We found all the items on the hunt and more! Here are some examples of what we saw:
Jumping Fish
Crawling Crabs
Ducks
Egret
Heron
Singing Bird
Ambling Ants
Buzzy Bee
Butterflies
Spiderwebs
Animal Tracks - bird and raccoon
Red Bumps on Willow Leaves
Yellow Flowers
Prickly Pear Cactus
Cattails
Sage Brush
Lemonade Berry Bush
Floating Kelp
Feathers
Sea Shells
Sounds fun! We have a nature scavenger hunt coming up soon... reminded me of you, since you had us do one last year.
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