Take a Child Outside Week

This week is Take a Child Outside Week (www.takeachildoutside.org) and coincidentally also starts Tanglewood's portion of the Chemung Riverwalk. It is a program that has been going on for over 10 years, but enough people don't know about it. It is run by the Arnot Art Museum and spans the whole school year. The Museum coordinates 4th grade classes from Elmira, Elmira Heights and Horseheads. They also coordinate naturalists, musicians, poets, historians and artists. All who take part in Riverwalk spend their time focusing on the River and its historical and present day importance.

This week and next, Tanglewood meets with the students at the Chemung River and then in their classrooms. We teach them about the water cycle, pollution, arthropods and other animal life, food webs, trees, flooding...all manner of topics that relate to the River. Over the course of the next two weeks, we will have met well over 200 students and have gotten every one of them outside and hopefully enthusiastic about being there. We meet with the kids again in May to compare changes in the River habitat from Fall to Spring and we also get to see the students growing up and changing too!

Riverwalk is a terrific program that is truly relevant to curriculum and to the kids' own lives. It gets students outdoors and it gives them exposure to art and culture and an appreciation for the world around them that they can't get in the classroom.

The first meeting at the River for us was yesterday. It was a beautiful day, the kids were excited to be there and so was I. As we were ending the day and walking back to the buses, one young man from Cohen looked at me after spending some time trying to catch insects and spiders and said "I had fun today, I have never used anything like an insect net before." Makes it all worth it.

Disney Travel Writer?

I am sitting here waiting for a Disney Travel Writer to show up. I am not sure what to expect. There have been jokes all day about mouse ears, but I am assuming she won't be wearing them. It is amazing how much stress a travel writer coming to your business can cause. You want to make the place look as good as possible; no dead animal smells upon entering. You want to be friendly but not annoying, you want to tell them all about the place but not make them want to get the heck out because you are talking too much....eek!

I was worried last week when the Travel Expo people were coming. They turned out to be one of the nicest groups of people we have had up here. They were so much fun! All retired people, very interesting, asked a lot of relevant questions and loved our animals. They made the hour and a half that they were here fly by, so I am trying to be positive.

I am not complaining though, Tanglewood is finally getting "in the loop" as far promoting ourselves as not only an educational facility, but also a tourist stop. And why shouldn't we be a tourist stop? We have over 300 acres of land with 9+ miles of hiking trails, a beautiful 12,000 square foot building with a museum and 43 species of live animals. Who else in this area has that? And admission is free! But we can't stay open if people don't visit and donate and support what we do. I hope the Disney lady shows up....

Porcupine Myths and Facts

Got a call last week from a nice woman asking me to help identify a snake. Snake ID phone calls are one of the most common we get. I think I helped her realize she likely had a Northern Water Snake in her yard. It seemed like if she wasn't a snake lover, she was at least a snake-appreciator. I like that.

The interesting part of the conversation though was the end, when she asked me an "aside" question about porcupines. She indicated that a forester she had dealings with recently told her there aren't any porcupines North of the Chemung River because they weren't able to cross the water! She wondered if I knew anything about that. Now, my first instinct was to laugh. Not very nice, I know, but I hear myths like that all the time. I know porcupines are North of the Chemung because I have seen them crossing the road here, but I wanted to look up their official range. It appears they are everywhere in New York State. Looking up where they are found also gave me an opportunity to find out some more natural history. Probably one of the most interesting things I found was that porcupines have been around for a long time. They have found porcupine fossils from the Oligocene Epoch, which dates from 33.7 to 23.6 million years ago. This time period was marked by cooling on Earth and land mammal groups doing pretty well, including the porcupines.

Porcupines are mammals, members of the Rodent family, and can weigh up to 30 pounds! Their famous quills are modified hairs (they have around 30,000 of them) they use for protection. Another myth surrounding porcupines involves the use of these quills; they can raise them up when they feel threatened, but they cannot shoot them at a predator. A predator can become impaled if they come in contact with the porcupine, because the quills can dislodge, but there is no active shooting going on. Good thing porcupines have quills though; they are near-sighted, slow and pretty clumsy- they would be good prey for a lot of predators without those prickly hairs. They are chiefly nocturnal and prefer to spend their time in trees; likley partially because they are strict herbivores and like to munch on tree bark. But even though they are often hidden and most active at night, you might get a chance to see them in the winter months alongside the roads because they have a particular liking for salt. Make sure you look out for them everywhere in Chemung and the surrounding counties.

So thanks again to a phone call, porcupines join muskrats in having my admiration.