Jays and Juncos, Banana Slugs, and Weavings

October 15, 2025- 

Post-rain hiking adventure at Branciforte Creek Trail, which begins at the edge of the baseball courts. Look for a two old wagon wheels and you're close to the trailhead. We saw tons of banana slugs, the first person to identify a slug gets to name it! Students related the up and down terrain of this trail to a 'rollercoaster' (referring this section to rollercoaster on our return as well), and we took turns staggering each 'rider' to get a chance to run the up down windy sections. 

After a relatively steep decline following redwood trees and Branciforte Creek to our left, we arrive to our days camp. On our right lies a steep, rocky, moss covered outcropping, that is a sight to behold. In the center of these two dramatic landmarks hangs a well made rope swing that has been at this location for the past several months. Ensue boundary setting, creek, and area exploration and interaction, and snack time as always. 

We later played Jays and Juncos, a cooperative, yet competitive, bird themed game. Teams of two are chosen to be Jays, or Juncos. Junco teams of two (3-4 teams needed) are responsible for hiding their 'nests' (cups or small containers) in the surrounding area. Their job is to get one bean at a time from the 'bird feeder' (larger bowl with many beans) and bring the bean to their nest. Teams of Jays are trying to find the Juncos nests, take one bean at a time, and bring them to their nest. Jays may not visit the same Junco nest two times in a row. Jays also must count to 60 while Juncos hide their nests (so Jays do not know, in the beginning, where their opponents nests are). This game lasts 7 minutes and is so much fun! Jays and Juncos have the option to switch in the next rounds, so long as the rough ratio of Jay to Junco teams are 1:3. 

Some students continued their weavings while others interacted with banana slugs using leaves, explored the felled redwood tree worlds of their imaginations, and played cooperative improv games of their own creation.

 

Animals Identified: Mallard duck, Banana Slug, Crow, Scrub Jay 

Plants Identified: poison oak, Bay tree, Redwood tree, blackberry bush 

Rainy Days, Creature Shelter Building, Balance challenges

 October 13, 2025- Rainy beginning of our day at Schwann Lagoon. While many outdoor activities get canceled due to rain, we know that rain gives us some of the  best opportunities to see nature in action, and to utilize our resources to make shelter, as humans have always known how to do. Not only is exposure to rain invigorating, but it really reminds us to have gratitude for when we do get to our warm homes. No better way to do this than getting out in the rain!

There were many moths flying around an oak tree at the beginning of the trail, and one landed on a student. A fun little doo-dad when out in nature is whoever finds a creature gets to name it, and so Pumpkin the moth joined our group. It was raining, so some students devised a plan to build Pumpkin a shelter to protect it. 

An super simple challenge using only sticks involves finding two straight-ish sticks, and trying to pick up a third stick with those sticks, or balancing a stick between your two sticks and trading back and forth. After a while of this, the rain started torrentially coming down, so we met our sister-group (affiliated with Wildflower Learning Circle, based in Santa Cruz) at the Capitola Children's Discovery Museum. This is always a super fun place to go when the weather gets too intense. 

Animals Identified: Seagull, Cormorant, pigeon, California Oak Moth

Wilder Ranch exploration

 October 8, 2025- 

Explored the aloe forts that live down by the ranch houses at Wilder Ranch. The Aloe forts and massive Cypress tree make for great play and hide and seek games. Noted swallow nests along the gutters of the ranch houses. We didn't see any swallows at this time, but we could see from their nests made from clay and other materials that it was possible that these nests could be inhabited once again.  

But today was all about getting to the treasure, buried mysteriously in the dry creek bed by a very notable Oak tree covered in 'old man's beard' lichen.

 Lichen's are so cool, it is actually a symbiotic organism made of both algae and fungus, that both photosynthesizes (algae), and has strong structure (fungus). So off we went through the echo tunnel, the old cabin, and across the bridge to our buried treasure (guava candies!) in the dry creek bed below. 

We will see big changes in this creekbed from now, end of summer and dry, to winter, when it is fully flowing, and we certainly can't dig up treasure then! 

We returned back to the area by the apple trees and chickens, picked and ate some apples (I've received permission before from a state park ranger), painted with facepaint, many worked on their weavings, and passed around a ball. Turkeys were jumping over the fence into the sheeps quarters which was quite entertaining! 

Returned to our camp at the aloe forts, ate pumpkin bread together. played a card game, called Spot It, and played Fee Fi Fo Fum, a cooperative 'freeze' game where the 'Ogre' has a valuable possession, say, the keys to their car, at their feet, faces away, and says 'Fee fi fo fum', quickly turning back to their item, as the group slowly moves closer to steal the item. If the Ogre catches anyone moving, the whole group must return to the starting point. This involves a teamwork and body awareness to ensure that everyone is moving together. 

Animals Identified: Red Tail Hawk, Chicken, Turkey, Sheep, Goat, Western Fence Lizard

Plants Identified: Aloe Vera, Blackberry, Old Man's Beard, Oak tree, California Poppy, Thistle, Willow 

Herping, Acorn Woodpeckers, and Hiking!

October 7, 2025- 

Hiked the Chaminade Trail system today, and found a huge alligator lizard under a log! One of our students guessed it was a Skink Lizard, which was an excellent guess. Skink's are a very unique type of lizard that are found in Santa Cruz county, with a bright blue tail sure to shock any hiker. More about Skilton's Skinks found in Santa Cruz: https://hilltromper.com/article/skiltons-skink . This is an awesome site with lots of fun info about Santa Cruz nature and current events. 

*Check out this cool video from the same site showing wildlife crossing under the Highway 17 wildlife crossing tunnel https://hilltromper.com/article/highway-17-wildlife-crossings-huge-success-makes-good-show *

Also saw a millipede, in it's mode of primary defense, which is curling up in a tight coil, protecting its legs beneath its hard exoskeleton. Deriving from Latin, 'Milli' implying a thousand legs, is not quite accurate, while millipedes have usually around 40-400 legs. Millipede's are one of Earth's oldest land animals, and appeared roughly 23.5 million years ago! Some of the oldest members grew to over 2 m long! Yikes!!

Also identified Creeping Snow Berry, a native shrub.

Towards the end of our hike saw dozens of Acorn woodpeckers flying overhead near sunset time, identified by the underwing plumage and red heads. 

Animals- Alligator Lizard, Millipede, Acorn Woodpecker

Plants- Poison Oak, Creeping snowberry, English Ivy, Redwood Sorrel

Canada Goose and Ruddy Duck at Westlake Park

October 6, 2025- Sunny day at Westlake park, starting with setting up cones to play soccer, per group request. We walked the perimeter of Westlake Park and identified American Coot, Snowy goose, Mallard Duck, noting male and female and plumage differences, Western pond turtle, and Ruddy Duck. 

Ruddy Duck is a fun bird to view in the springtime, as the males display a bright blue bill during mating season. Last year we saw two male ruddy duck's, and were able to identify them now in fall too, as their beaks had traces of a bluish tint and plumage matched that of ruddy duck. The Santa Cruz Natural History Museum has nice laminated pocket bird guides for purchase, that we use often in nature club to identify birds in the field, and to look at the birds that could be present in the biome that we're exploring. 

We also saw a Canada Goose, a more rare sighting than the common ducks and Snowy Goose seen at Westlake Park land in the pond. Was a perfect segway to a reading of a National Geographic Migration book.

ID'd and discussed Tule's importance in Native American communities in weaving for boats, baskets, mats, clothing, shelter, and more. Parts of the Tule plant are also edible, including the rhizome and flower heads. 

Students played Godzilla imaginative play at the playground and more soccer, as well as tree climbing at the northern side of the pond. Good climbing trees circled on map below.

Ruddy Duck spring vs Fall beak

Sunny Cove Beach and Sand Piggies, Divided by stinky runoff!

Oct 2- Today we went to Sunny Cove Beach, and ran into a phenomenon, hazard, a sight to behold, a stinky micro pond formed on the back end of the beach! We enter through the back end of the beach, and this pond blockaded us from the ocean waters edge. Water quality unsure, but brown murky ness certain, we did piggy backs taking the kids across to the other end, where we had a great time digging up sand crabs, also called mole lice (not head lice!) along the waters edge. 

Sand crabs, also called Sand Piggies by some of our students, are super fun to collect, as theyre easy to grab (just dig your hand in the sand!), tickly, and don't bite or pinch. Their tough exoskeleton can really take a beating from waves, and they get all their food from plankton washing over them by waves. This is why you'll only find these Sand piggies right along the waters edge. They move up and down the beach and follow the tide so they always are beneath waves. They have 5 sets of legs that allow them to move backwards and burrow very quickly into the sand. They live for about 2-3 years and females can lay 40,000 eggs! Mole crabs. sand piggies, also make great fishing bait and snacks for birds, and can also be fried and eaten

Plants: Wild Radish, Bull Kelp

Animals: Western Gull, Mole Crabs

Wet Creek Day at Highland County Park

 Starting off October strong at Highland County Park, a great place up by Felton that has a great playground, climbing structure, and multiple creek spots. We started our day with free play at the playground, followed by a short hike to the creek spots, creek play, rock engineering and low limb tree climbing. There were some extra slippery algae covered flat rocks in a few areas entering the creek, so some students and I engineered a solution, taking some sand and spreading it out overtop of the most slippery parts. Getting wet is a part of creek play, so while some kids got pretty soaked, I decided to sit in the river in my jeans as well. All part of the fun!

We made our way back to the playground area and shared pumpkin bread, cutting up the loaf and counting pieces and each other ensuring everyone could have some. We talked about gratitude and thinking about all the people that went into making this bread before having some. Students started their weaving projects, a simple cardboard loom project that's great for a lightweight, portable craft that can be worked on here and there. These will come with us on our Wednesday adventures so kids have a meditative craft to work on during down times.

A link to the project: https://www.cedardellforestfarm.com/blog/2020/7/10/diy-cardboard-weaving-loom

End of day with playing soccer in the tennis courts, climbing, and swinging.

Animals spotted: crawdads, redtail hawk, crows

Plants identified: willow, Bishop pine, poison oak, thistle 

Great Horned Owl right on trail!

Sept 29, 2025- Chaminade Trail, Blue hike

Chaminade Trail (red and blue hikes) is a great multi-biome multi-terrain hike that takes you through oak/eucalyptus tree woodland, down into redwood forest, up to a oak meadow. There's some interesting infrastructure here, from a seemingly abandoned 'ropes course' that's once existed here down in the redwood forest section of the trail. We start our days getting acquainted with the location, as the Chaminade is not your commonly crossed place, by pointing out DeLaveaga park from the red platform viewpoint beside the tennis courts. (If you want to check out these trails, park behind the tennis courts).

One student caught a baby Western Fence Lizard at our circle time.

Today we saw a Great Horned Owl right at the beginning of our hike, and it remained in the same spot for our entire hike! Past the redwood forest we found a creek spot by Paul Sweet Road, and some of the more rare fern species present along a rocky outcropping. Played some duck duck goose and continued hiking and identifying plants. Ate some Redwood Sorel! Found banana slugs!

This is a great and challenging hike, as the way back is pretty strenuous.

Animals: Great Horned Owl, Western Fence Lizard, Banana Slug, Dark Eyed Junco, Crows,

Plants: Western Maidenhair Fern, Blue Gum Eucalyptus Tree, Redwood, Maidenhair Fern, Redwood Sorel

Great Horned Owl perched