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Monsoon - Nature activitiesThe monsoon season is a window of opportunity for desert nature observations. Here are some activities to share with your kids - and they don't cost anything:Night Toad Walk: any area near a riverbed, Sabino Canyon, any park with signifcant natural area like Feliz Paseos park, will likely have lots of toads out at night. The most common in our area are the red spotted toad, a small (about the size of a child's fist) toad that seems to be not too shy of people. They come out towards evening and into the night. We have watched them eating termites and even fed them june bugs that we gathered nearby. Couch's spadefoot and Sonoran Desert Toad may also be out and about, some of pretty impressive sizes. Cicada Emergence: Although many are already out and singing, if you find a place that has cicada shells (those hollow bug-looking things clinging to fences and trees), come at night with a flashlight. You may be lucky enough to see a grub crawl out of the ground, climb the fence, and after several minutes of what seems to be intense effort, pop out of the back of its larval exoskeleton to emerge - a white cicada. It gradually darkens as it pumps out its wings, to fly off before morning leaving the empty shell behind. Sowbug Habitat: This is a favorite of my children. We learned at SASI (Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute) that the key to keeping these rolly-pollies alive is to keep them in a nearly airtight container. A food storage container with a good layer of leaf litter and some soil, moistened, and just a few holes poked in the top can successfully keep these interesting crustaceans alive in a colony for years. All that is necessary is to add a bit of fruit or other food every week or so, take out anything that is moldy, and add just a few drops of water if it seems to be drying out. Watch out for Wildlife: On walks near riparian areas, look into holes - if you don't see teenage round-tailed ground squirrels peeking out, you may be surprised to see a toad in the hole. Smaller holes with webbing could be homes of tarantulas. Tadpole Rescue: In between the monsoons, puddles form. In those puddles, tadpoles must complete their growth cycle and turn into toads before the puddle dries. Some years many tadpoles survive - other years the timing may be wrong, and hundreds of tadpoles are stranded in the last drying puddle, to be eaten by owls, nighthawks, roadrunners and others, and finally to dry out. If you see a last puddle drying in a wash, see if there are some tadpoles to scoop out. Keep them in any fish tank for about a week or so, feeding with any fish food or small bits of plant material. Then release the toadlets back where you found them, to keep the life cycle going. |
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