Thursday, October 3, 2013

Our Nature Scavenger Hunt along the Eastern Trail...

As I had mentioned in a previous post, last week we went on a nature scavenger walk along the Eastern Trail.  This was a fun event to kickoff the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend.  We had a list of twenty items to find along the trail.  In the picture above Grace, Jack and Eve huddled together at the beginning of our walk to review the list of items we were searching for. 

The beginning of our scavenger hunt walk....Grace, Jack and Eve were very excited!

For most of the walk, Eve was in charge of holding our clipboard and scavenger hunt paper.  Eve was a great little leader!

Grace, Jack and Eve opened up milkweed to examine the seeds inside.

Grace spread all of the milkweed seeds along the trail. (We were so sad this summer not to have seen many monarch caterpillars and butterflies.  There was a dramatic drop in their population this year.  Grace spread milkweed seeds all along the trail hoping that the seeds would grow next spring to help bring the monarchs back to Maine!).

Here is Eve checking off several of the items that we found along our walk.

We spent lots of time on this part of the Eastern Trail.  It's a small bridge that crosses over the marsh.  It is here where we spotted several egrets, watched a local fisherman, made leaf boats to drop into the water and served as a greeting committee for other walkers, runners and bikers along the path!
  
Grace enjoying the view of the Scarborough marsh from the bridge.  This marsh is largest salt marsh in the state of Maine.

Jack and Eve watching several egrets drying their wings.

Jack

Grace, Jack and Eve

Gracie

Grace cartwheeling!  Grace is such a free spirited girl and I love how she cartwheels whenever and wherever she can!

Grace and Jack loved standing on the bridge to watch a local fisherman fish below.  After watching him for nearly twenty minutes we decided to go directly under the bridge to get a better view.

The fisherman was so happy to have Grace, Jack and Eve watch him.  He talked to us about what he was doing and how he goes about catching fish.

Jack and Eve underneath the bridge

Watching the fisherman

In the end, we found all twenty items on our scavenger hunt but best of all we enjoyed a fun-filled afternoon together in such a beautiful place.

1 comment:

Maddy, said...


What a glorious afternoon with your family!

We *love* the Eastern Trail so much...walking along the salt marsh soaking in all that nature that is very different from Vermont.

Love how each of the children gave us a little peek into their thinking...Grace with her free spirit and her helping the monarchs, Jack with his spying of egrets and fishermen, and Eve taking it all in and leading.

I can only imagine that the fisherman learned a lot more than he ever thought he would that afternoon!!

Gorgeous photos of gorgeous children in an amazing setting!

Love, Maddy

Got Gracie, Jack & Eve?