*Joey and William will be guests here on the blog as they document our Nature Challenge journey for 2016.

The Challenge: Complete a bird scavenger hunt in the museum.  Go outside to sight birds and create a journal entry of the birds seen and identified.

We went out to the Texas A & M University – Kingsville on Saturday, September 10th.

J: I liked the part where I had to look at the different habitats that are around the Coastal Bend area and find the birds.

W:  My favorite was the roadrunner.

J: The Greater Roadrunner.

Me: Does anyone remember which habitat the Greater Roadrunner was in?

J:  Mesquite Chaparral.  It was the first habitat we visited.

Me: Are you sure?

J:  Yes!  Then after that we saw the Hollow Tree.

(We looked at the pictures to confirm) Me: Yep, you’re right Joey!

W:  I pushed the button that made the bird sounds.  Remember, Mommy, it drove you nuts?

Me: Oh yes, I remember.

J:  I wish I had known there were birds sounds I could do.  Then remember we saw some animal skins?  Alligator skins and we saw an actual starfish!

W:  I touched all of the skins, too.  I liked the fur from the fox.

J:  I liked the soft furry ones.  They were good to touch.  We saw birds at Oak Motte and the Dry Chaparral, too.  My favorite habitat was the Hollow Tree because it looked so cool to live inside the tree.  It looked nice and cozy.  I’d want to be a bat living in there where I could hang upside down without being scared.

W:  My favorite habitat was the Mesquite Chaparral where the roadrunner was.  The Hollow Tree looked nice, but I liked the Chaparral best.

J: After the habitats, we walked over to the Wild West room.  I walked in and at first I thought we were just going to pass through it, but it turned out we were actually going to play in it.  The Wild West room was made up of things to do in the wild west: ride a horse, take care of a calf, cook, pump water.

W: My favorite part was riding the horse with Katie.  She was a cowgirl and she sat on the back.

J:  There were also exhibits that showed how the pioneers lived.  For example, they had an exhibit that showed a bedroom.

W:  It was a really neat room.

J:  Yeah, it really was. {sigh}

W:  After we played for awhile, we went out of the museum, crossed the street and looked for birds on the campus.

J:  We had to be very quiet.  First we had to pick a spot, wait 30 seconds and then for 2 minutes we watched.  Then after that we walked 120 steps and did the same thing.  We repeated that five times.  We saw a total of 5 birds and heard 3 birds, but we saw a lot of dragonflies and butterflies and we heard a lot of cicadas.

W:  Some of the birds we saw were mourning doves.   We always see mourning doves at our house.

J:  We only got to see new places for three of them and then we walked back for the other two.  I got to use my binoculars, which is always fun.

W:  Okay, until next time!