2015 #3NatureWILD Magazine

NatureWILD Magazine for the Nature Kids of British Columbia

Volume 16 Issue 3 2015

Colours of Fall

Glaciers Don’t say ‘Ugh’ to Maggots! s u o l u b a r F Fractals!

naturekidsbc.ca

The Nature Exploration Club for Families.

Inside...

3 Colour And Show!

4 Fractals 5 Maggots!

8 Colours of Fall 10 Glaciers 12 Sparrow’s Big Feast

14 Ask Al 15 NatureWILD News 16 Fernword Questions? Comments?

Vanessa Lee, President info@naturekidsbc.ca Kristine Webber, Executive Director kristinewebber@naturekidsbc.ca Tammy Keetch, Clubs Coordinator coordinator@naturekidsbc.ca

NatureKids help to save amphibians!

The all-amphibian NatureWILD (2015, Issue 1) told how most frogs, toads and salamanders breed in wetlands but spend the rest of the year in forests. Often they have to cross roads to get to these habitats and many are killed in traffic.

Volunteers can help us carry out road surveys to find these ‘migration’ pathways. This spring NatureKids BC invited club members to collect data on roads in their area. The first group, the Cowichan Saturday Club, surveyed a road in the Duncan area three times in spring. The narrow, low-traffic road they surveyed will soon have many houses built on it, which means more traffic and - more killed amphibians. The data they collected may lead to an amphibian tunnel being installed under the road.

This fall seven more NatureKids clubs will be doing amphibian road surveys. Together, we hope to make a difference.

Elke Wind (former club leader, M. Sc., R.P. Bio.) Project Designer and Supervisor Find Nature Kids BC on Facebook! www.facebook.com/naturekidsbc

Cover photo by Ansel Adams, National Archives.

Nature Kids BC is an exciting nature discovery and environmental

action program that invites young people ages 5-12 years to have fun discovering nearby nature on Explorer Days with local experts, learn about native wildlife and plants in NatureWILD Magazine and take part in environmental actions to protect their habitat with the Action Awards program. For more information: naturekidsbc.ca

Thank you to our sponsors and supporters who share our vision that all children be connected with nature.

Daniel Kell, Membership and Office Coordinator info@naturekidsbc.ca NatureWILD Editorial Committee

info@naturekidsbc.ca

Content Editor: Daphne Solecki Production Editor: Monica Belko Editorial Assistants: Brian Herrin, Tricia Edgar Contributor: Al Grass NATURE

1620 Mt. Seymour Rd. North Vancouver, BC V7G 2R9

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VANCOUVER

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We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia

ISSN: 1492-7241 NatureWILD is printed on SFI certified paper by Benwell Atkins an RR Donnelley Company,Vancouver.

Colour and Show!

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Hidden inside this puzzle is a familiar songbird that you can find in a garden or park.

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Grab your markers and use the grid code below to colour the squares and watch the mystery bird appear!

Grid Code: 1

2

3

4

5

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GREEN

RED

YELLOW

BLACK

BROWN

WHITE

ORANGE

BLUE

E 9

GREY

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s u o l u Frab ! s l a t c Fra

A fractal is a shape or pattern that appears in natural objects and repeats itself over and over.

The object need not repeat the pattern exactly or in the same size but should show the same “type” of pattern. Another way of saying this is that when you look at the scales of a closed pine cone they are all the same but are of slightly different sizes. A small pine cone scale looks just like a big one.

There are wonderful examples of natural fractals that we can easily see in a pine cone, or the compound eye of an insect. We can find fractals in succulent plants like Hens and Chicks, broccoli or a fern frond in spring.

Chambered Nautilus shells and peacocks are truly ‘frabulous’ fractals!

Perhaps you can go looking for fractals in the broccoli section or you could even grow fractals by getting a few Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum sp.) and growing them in a pot. Soon you will be able to share your Hens and Chicks fractal babies with your friends and teach them a new word!

Fractals are everywhere!

A closed pine cone.

“Pinus contorta cone Little Si” by Peter Stevens from Seattle - Another pine cone. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Pinus_contorta_cone_Little_Si.jpg#/media/File:Pinus_ contorta_cone_Little_Si.jpg

A Nautilus shell with chambers.

“NautilusCutawayLogarithmicSpiral” by Chris 73 / Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NautilusCutawayLogarit hmicSpiral.jpg#/media/File:NautilusCutawayLoga rithmicSpiral.jpg

Hens and Chicks.

“Hens and Chicks Closeup 3075px” by Photo by Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hens_and_Chicks_ Closeup_3075px.jpg#/media/File:Hens_and_Chicks_Closeup_3075px.jpg

A close-up of a piece of broccoli.

“Broccoli DSCN4572”. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broccoli_DSCN4572.jpg#/media/ File:Broccoli_DSCN4572.jpg

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If you are interested in reading about other ways of looking at patterns in nature, see Nature and Numbers, Fibonacci Numbers in NatureWILD,Volume 14, Issue 3, September 2013

Don’t say ‘Ugh’ to Maggots!

By Brian Herrin and Daphne Solecki

Maggots are ugly -

short, fat, white and wiggly - and people do say “ugh” or “yuk”!

But maggots are really incredibly useful creatures; this world would be a very messy place without them.

Maggots are little wormy creatures that do nothing but eat ALL the time. They have no legs at the larger tail end and have no eyes on their narrow head end. Their mouthparts are just two hooks which they use to hang onto their food and then use to tear the food up into small pieces.

Maggot head and tail close up.

“Asticot Maggot” by CedricDW - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asticot_Maggot. jpg#/media/File:Asticot_Maggot.jpg

Maggots are the larvae of flies which lay their eggs on any kind of dead flesh (meat).

Flies such as blowflies are often the first visitors to a dead animal and will lay eggs immediately. When the maggots hatch, they work their way into a dead carcass by tearing a little hole with their mouthparts. They dissolve the flesh with their saliva, so it turns to liquid. Soon they can actually stick their heads right into the flesh to keep eating. As they ‘breathe’ through holes in their tail ends they don’t have to come up for air.

Maggots are always hungry and eat full time, usually moulting twice as they get bigger. Their body metabolism is working so hard that a bunch of maggots working on a carcass can heat it up by 10°C! Why are maggots so useful? In nature, creatures large and small live for a time, then they die. But what happens to their bodies? If it weren’t for maggots we would be knee deep in dead birds and animals. The maggots take care of that problem by gradually turning the meat into liquid that soaks into the ground to fertilize plants.

On the other hand, birds and animals find maggots very tasty and eat a great many of them, so life for the maggot is basically eat, eat, eat and be eaten. Some survive to metamorphose into flies and start the cycle all over again.

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Don’t say ‘Ugh’ to Maggots!

A Close Encounter of the Stinky Kind - Brian’s Story

One day a grade 5 student brought in a dead shrew in a zipped plastic baggie. He’d found the shrew on his doorstep and wanted to know what it was. Just as I began to talk about shrews, passing the baggie around so everyone could have a look, the bell rang for a surprise fire drill. Surprise fire drills were usually held last thing on a Friday afternoon so you can guess what happened! The student with the baggie just stuffed it into her Maggots on a piece of cheese. desk and after the drill we all went home.

“Uienvlieg maden” by Rasbak at nl.wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Uienvlieg_maden.jpg#/media/File:Uienvlieg_maden.jpg

At the end of the next week, the student who had been the last to look at the shrew started searching for something in her desk - and shrieked! She had found the still zipped baggie but there was no shrew any more. It had turned into a mass of wriggling maggots along with some nasty looking liquid with very tiny bones and a bit of fur in it.

At first the students were repelled, then they wanted to know more. We all went outside and I opened the baggie downwind while the students held their noses. It was pretty clear that a fly had visited the dead shrew on the doorstep and laid a clutch of eggs on it. The warm classroom and the moist atmosphere inside the baggie allowed the maggots to develop quickly.

Some were already leaving the liquid and were crawling up to the dry zipper area to pupate. I thought we should see what type of flies had laid those eggs so we poured the whole ‘mess’ into a glass jar with a bit of soil and a few rocks to crawl up on or hide under. I taped some tinfoil round the jar up to soil level and put a paper towel on the top held on by two elastic bands to let air in. It worked wonderfully and the maggots soon burrowed into the soil.

A Green Bottle Fly.

“Green bottle fly3” by Calibas - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Green_bottle_fly3.jpg#/media/File:Green_bottle_fly3.jpg

A week and a half later we were rewarded with about 40 shiny flies. They had metallic green bodies and bright red eyes - Green Bottle Flies (Lucilia sericata). After studying them we let them go. Our one shrew had become 40 flies ready to mate and help recycle any other dead animal that they might come across. It’s a messy job but some‘body’ has to do it!

Maggots also Help Police Officers 6

Some flies, like the blowflies, are often the first visitors to any dead creature and will lay eggs immediately. Forensic (detective) scientists learned this a long time ago. By studying how much time it must have been since the first eggs were laid and how much the larvae and pupae of insects have grown, they can estimate how long a body has been dead.

Don’t say ‘Ugh’ to Maggots!

See For Yourself If you want to see how quickly blowflies find dead animal flesh, place a small piece of fresh meat on the inside of an upside down jar lid. Place the lid in the sunlight on a warm day and see how soon shiny green or blue blowflies arrive. Usually they are females who will begin to lay eggs on your ‘bait’. Watch carefully while they do this.

As soon as there are a few clutches of little white eggs on your meat, screw the clean jar on to the upside down lid. Turn the jar right side up and move it to a place out of the sunlight. Keep an eye on the eggs over the next few days and see the maggots hatch and start feeding. Observe what happens to the meat. If you open the jar every other day for a few seconds and fan air into it, the Maggots on a piece of meat. maggots will get enough air.

If you keep the jar closed there will be no smell except when you open it. So go outside for that! When the maggots have hatched into flies, let them out of the jar so they can go about their business cleaning up the world.

THE Maggot Factory

Some years ago Dr. Suzuki and his fishing buddy Brad thought of another way to make maggots be really useful. It took them a while to figure how best to go about it, but here’s how it works.

The ‘hero’ of the story is the Black Soldier Fly, which is native to North America and often found in compost heaps.

Maggots in hand. Photo by Peter Robinson.

How the maggots set to work: Fruit and vegetable waste is collected from food companies and mushed up with fish trimmings (skin and tails) and old bread. This mush is fed to the larvae of the Black Soldier Fly. The larvae (maggots) eat it in about three hours so it never has time to rot. After two weeks of munching the maggots are collected, cleaned, cooked, dried and ground into meal. Full of proteins and oils, this meal is really nutritious for fish and poultry, Some of the larvae are kept to hatch into new Black Soldier Flies and the castings from the maggots are made into fertilizer. So it goes on, round and round, absolutely nothing is wasted.

Brad started up the ‘maggot factory’ (Enterra) here in BC to make food for land-based fish farms. His friend, Dr. Suzuki, went to visit the maggots. If you want to see what he saw, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBHVg_tdTLM

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Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Bro Although most of the forests in BC are evergreen, wherever you live in the province there will be many deciduous trees (and shrubs) with leaves that turn different shades of yellow, red and orange before they fall off.

Do you wonder why the leaves turn colour and how they do it?

Why do trees have leaves?

Leaves are the tree’s food makers. Roots bring water to the tree and leaves take in a gas called carbon dioxide from the air. The leaves then use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose which is the tree’s food. The leaves then send out a ‘waste product’ which is oxygen and which all land animals need to breathe.

The process is called photosynthesis and is used by all plants (and some algae) to feed themselves.

A chemical called chlorophyll helps photosynthesis happen. Chlorophyll also makes leaves green.

“Leaves-scan”.

Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leaves-scan.jpg#/media/File:Leaves-scan.jpg

Photosynthesis is the way roots and leaves work together to make food for the tree to grow on. It isn’t very easy to understand and it took scientists a long time to work out how it all happens.

What makes trees and bushes drop their leaves in fall?

Background image - “Herbst (MW 2010.11.13.)” by Meinolf Wewel

- Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Herbst_(MW_2010.11.13.).jpg#/media/File:Herbst_ (MW_2010.11.13.).jpg

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“Acer saccharum JPG1L” by Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

- Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acer_saccharum_JPG1L. jpg#/media/File:Acer_saccharum_JPG1L.jpg

As summer ends and fall comes, the days get shorter and shorter until during the winter months there is not enough light for photosynthesis to take place.

Keeping their leaves supplied with sugar would be a waste of resources for trees, so they cut off the energy supply to the leaves. The leaves gradually change colour, wither and die, and finally fall off the tree. The trees can then rest until spring, living off the food they stored during the summer.

own - the Colours of Fall How do leaves ‘turn’ colour?

In fact the leaves do not ‘turn’ colour - the colours were there all along!

They were hidden by the green colour produced by chlorophyll.

When photosynthesis stops, the chlorophyll disappears from the leaves and so does the green colour.

Now you can see the other colours that were hidden up to now and which get brighter and brighter as time goes on. It is as though the leaves had secret paint boxes with their own special colours carotenoids which give yellow, orange and brown and anthocyanins which give all kinds of red and purple.

Plant cells with visible chloroplasts.

Photo by Kristian Peters

- Fabelfroh (photographed by myself) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Why are colours brighter some years than others?

While shorter days provide the trigger for leaves to change colour, it’s the weather that decides how bright the colours will be. Sunny days and cool (but not freezing) nights bring out the brightest colours. As the actual weather each fall will be a bit different from every other fall, and different all over BC and across Canada, so the fall colours will be different in every place and in every year.

What happens to all those fallen leaves?

“Autumn girl” by Tom O Fitz

- originally posted to Flickr as Autumn. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Autumn_girl.jpg#/media/File:Autumn_girl.jpg

The leaves that fall are not wasted – nature recycles them. Fallen leaves become food for many tiny creatures. Fungi, worms, insects and bacteria too small to see break them down and as the leaves decompose they put their nutrients back into the soil. That’s why it is best to collect the leaves that fall onto your garden and pile them onto your flower and vegetable beds (or in the compost bin). By the time spring comes they will have broken down and be ready to fertilize your plants.

Sources: USDA Forest Service, Science made Simple, Focus on Forests – British Columbia Ministry of Forests

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How Glaciers Shaped the Nicola Valley

By Frances Vyse

If you have ever travelled Highway 5A from Merritt to Kamloops, then you have travelled through the dry, sunny Nicola Valley. Now imagine you are in the valley at a time thousands and thousands of years ago 20,000 years ago in fact ... a time of great changes in the landscape.

The Time of Ice Our part of the world has become colder and colder. Snow is falling all year round.

Finally more snow falls in winter than melts in summer. The snow becomes deeper and deeper until it is hundreds of metres thick. The great weight of the snow packs down the lower layers until they turn to ice. Then the ice starts to slide and creep downhill, following the old river valleys. Now, instead of rivers of water, there are rivers of ice, which we call glaciers.

Although glaciers are solid ice and seem as though they never move, in fact the ice does move, very very slowly, about 100 metres a year.

As snow continues to fall, the ice gets thicker and spreads out further and further.

Now the lowlands are covered by ice. About 15,000 years ago all of BC is covered by a vast ice sheet. Ice in the Nicola Valley is more than 1,500 metres thick.

Nothing is living in this frozen land. The only sounds are the blowing of the wind and the grinding and cracking of the ice. Ferocious blizzards blast across the ice sheet.

Great Glacier of the Stikine (background image).

Photo by June Ryder.

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A glacier.

“Morteratsch glacier 1� by Daniel Schwen - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Morteratsch_ glacier_1.jpg#/media/ File:Morteratsch_ glacier_1.jpg

The Thaw The time of ice lasts for more than 5,000 years. At last, about 15,000 years ago, the snow slows down, the climate warms up and the ice starts to melt. As the top layers of the ice sheet melt, the ice sinks lower and lower until the buried hills can be seen again. Huge quantities of meltwater flow over, under and through the ice, moving boulders, rocks and gravel and depositing them in, under and beyond the edge of the ice.

Now the world of the upper Nicola valley is very noisy.

Day and night the air is filled with the thunderous roar of water pouring down and the crashing of rocks and boulders that come down with the water.

But the Nicola Valley, downstream from where Merritt is today, is closer to the high Coastal Mountains and is still full of ice. The ice blocks most of the runoff and creates an ice-dammed lake upstream.

For a while the lake drains southward, with meltwater spilling over the land south of Quilchena and flooding down through the ice-free valleys. Then ice dams to the north crack and unimaginable amounts of water, tons and tons of water, come booming and rumbling down the valleys to the Salmon River and toward Kamloops in a huge burst, breaking all the rest of the ice dams.

At long, long last all the ice melts, there is less water, the land dries and the Nicola Valley begins to look much as it does today - a rolling landscape of hills, rocky outcrops and lakes.

Life CONTINUES

Napier Lake, south of Trapp Lake in the Nicola Valley, showing ice - rounded rocks on either side.

Photo by Rick Howie

During these thousands of years of ice and snow (which we now call The Ice Age) there are still a few ice-free areas, mostly near the sea and on nearby islands where plants and animals survive. These places are called refugia – places of safety. As the world grows warmer and the ice disappears, these plants and animals from the refugia gradually spread out and populate the land again. They are joined by more plants and animals moving northward from the warmer south.

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Dr. June Ryder for supplementary information.

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Sparrow’s Big Feast Sparrow was getting worried. The summer days were over, fall had come and now the leaves were falling off the trees. Soon they would all be gone and the yummy grubs and bugs that fed on them would vanish too. Even seeds and berries were getting harder to find. What would he eat when they were gone?

Then one day, he found a square patch of green grass between some bare trees. From the trees hung ... food!

He flew back to tell the other sparrows.

“Food!” he said. “Lots of it! There are seeds and nuts and fruit ... and all sorts of stuff!”

“Looks like our luck has changed,” said an older sparrow.

“But how?” asked Sparrow. “Winter is coming, the trees and bushes are almost bare. How can food just appear?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” said the older sparrow.

They flew off and settled in a tree overlooking the large square of grass.

Hanging from the trees were great stick-things full of food.

“What we have here,” said the older sparrow, “is a garden.”

“A what?” asked Sparrow.

“A garden. The huge featherless things that live in those big boxes often leave food here for us to eat.”

Sparrow did have the strangest feeling that someone was watching them, but he couldn’t see anyone.

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“There are always other creatures watching us,” warned the older sparrow, “creatures just as hungry as us, creatures with fur and teeth and claws that would gobble you up as soon as look at you. Keep a look out.

I’ll go down check the food and show you what to do.”

The older sparrow flew down and landed on a stick full of seeds. He pecked away at the seeds and they spilled out. Then he flew back to the tree again.

“Go on,” he said, “it’s safe.”

Sparrow went down to the feeder. Seeds tumbled out of a little hole and he gobbled them up. As he flew back up to the tree, the older sparrow flew back down. They took it in turns until they were quite full up.

Sparrow saw that they weren’t the only birds there. Chickadees clung to the feeders and pecked at nuts. Finches came to eat seeds too. A woodpecker came to eat suet. A junco splashed about in a pool of water.

Then, from inside the big box where the featherless things lived, Sparrow saw a flash in the sunlight.

All the birds dashed for the safety of the trees.

The birds watched from their hiding places. But no teeth snapped shut and no claws swiped. After a while when nothing else happened, the birds made their way back to the garden feed.

Sparrow came to the garden every day, and every day there was always food.

There were plenty of birds too. Sometimes he had to wait his turn, but he never went hungry.

Even so, happy as he was, the feeling that he was being watched never quite left him.

(Who do you think was watching? What made the flash?)

Adapted from Wild Times January-February 2015 by permission of RSPB Wildlife Explorers

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Have a Nature Question?

ASK AL

Al Grass has worked as a career park naturalist and ranger throughout BC. Now he is a well-known nature tour leader and photographer. Al especially likes birds, insects and spiders.

Thank You Al! In May, BC Nature awarded Al Grass the 2015 Daphne Solecki Award for Excellence in Nature Education for Children.

Daphne Solecki and Al Grass with his award. Photo by Bev Ramey.

Al Grass is well-known throughout BC for his love and wide knowledge of nature and natural history. He is equally known for his passion for sharing his knowledge with everyone he meets, adults and children alike and inspiring them to love nature as he does. He has led countless field trips for young naturalists. He has especially tried to share his love of spiders - his favourite 8-legged friends. He wants you all to know what fascinating little animals they are.

Above all, since the first issue of NatureWILD in 2000, he has given you his column, Ask Al. Over that time he seems to have covered every topic under the sun, but still there is always something new to get excited about. Fifteen years and still going strong!

We should like to celebrate Al’s contributions to Nature Kids and thank him so very much for all he has given to the children of BC.

Amphibians!

In spring, Cowichan Valley Weekend NatureKids took part in an amphibian project with biologist Elke Wind. What a way to get to know the frogs, toads, newts and salamanders of our region! We hopped right into it!

First we studied amphibians; then after sunset (amphibians get moving after dark) we geared up with reflective tape, safety vests, flashlights and headlamps. Away we went to do road surveys on a quiet street with ponds and a small lake nearby. Lined up shoulder to shoulder, we slowly made our way down the street, using our flashlights to light the ground in search of anything hopping. Kids operated the GPS, took notes and snapped photographs.

Sadly, some animals had been run over, so we looked for smears and suspicious blobs on the roads too. “I’ve found something!” came a call and we all looked. Sometimes alive and sometimes not, we identified the critter. By the end of the surveys we got pretty good at it. We recorded location and species on our sheets.

Knowing where the popular frog crossings are makes it possible to take action to protect them. Our club had fun, learned tons, and best of all, we did our part to help amphibians thrive and survive! Elke shows how to identify amphibians.

Photo by Krista Crowther.

(Leaders: Krista Crowther and Boleyn Relova)

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W r e I D u t a N NEWS

Elisabetta (10), Matteus (5), Donatella (8) Relova-Clegg (Cowichan Valley Saturday Club) show their T-shirts and certificates for completing four Passports to Nature. Photo by Boleyn Relova.

Passports to Nature Emma (Eastern Fraser Valley), Jack (Cowichan Valley), Kyler (Kelowna) sent in their first passports. Emma also sent in passport #2, as did Alexis (Williams Lake), Emaya (Penticton), and Heather (Nicomekl) and earned their caps. Travis (Victoria) and Nolan (Cowichan Valley) sent in passport #3 and received posters. Nolan also sent in passport #4, so did Matty, Dona and Eli (Cowichan Valley) and earned their T-shirts. Destiny and Harmony (Kelowna) sent in passport #5 and Elissa (Nicomekl) sent in passport #12! All three received posters.

(Luckily we have quite a selection!).

Well done, everyone!

Amphibian Poetry Competition

Photo by Jennifer Janeski.

Congratulations to Action Award Winner - Bronze Level: Lina Janeski (Oceanside). For one Action, Lina and her friend put on a puppet show on the lifecycle of the salmon, their habitats and how we can help the salmon survive. They made the puppets and the set, and wrote their own lines.

The Frog

by Nemo de Jong Beady eyes scanning their surroundings,

Winner (over 8 years old) Nemo de Jong

Winner (under 8 years old) Julin Giesbrecht The Frog and the Owner

by Julin Giesbrecht There was a marsh, a marsh, The owner was very harsh, very harsh, There was a Bog, a Bog The owner was a Frog, a Frog, The owner said get off my land, The Frog said stop upsetting my sand, The owner said I’ll turn you into Frog Leg Stew, The Frog said I’m hard to chew.

The Frog said I’m not mushy, I’m hard, The frog said when you cook me I’m charred, The owner said you win, you win, The owner ran back to the house he lived in.

The End.

A black lens ringed by mottled gold, A dragonfly is spotted nearby.

Its tongue shoots out of its mouth, seeking.

Long, yellow, tipped with a sticky ball, The tongue contracts, bringing the bug in.

Its eyeballs suck in, as it swallows.

The unfortunate bug is engulfed.

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Fernword Do you know what a fern looks like?

Find some of BC’s beautiful ferns in this wordsearch...

BEECH BRACKEN DEER FRAGILE GOLDENBACK LADY LICORICE MAIDENHAIR OAK OSTRICH PARSLEY RATTLESNAKE SHIELD SWORD

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