Enjoying Nature in Your Own Backyard
Nature is fascinating, exciting, and a great way to learn and explore. You might not be able to visit one of our parks every day, but you can still get your daily dose of nature by exploring in your own backyard or neighborhood! Here are some ideas of things you can do alone or with your family to get outside and explore nature while still practicing social distancing.
Attracting Animals
One easy form of nature entertainment is watching the animals that congregate outside your home. Many enjoyable hours can be spent watching birds, squirrels, butterflies, and other creatures that are just outside your window. Easy projects such as spreading seeds or creating your own bird feeders out of items around your home (see our Facebook video for an easy tutorial) can attract many birds, as well as squirrels and chipmunks, to your yard.
Also, adding a water source for animals to drink from is a great way to get them to stick around. Anything from a store-bought birdbath to a mixing bowl or pie tray filled with water should do the trick! To attract butterflies, plant flowers that butterflies love, such as milkweed, bee balm, coneflowers, and irises. You can also put out fresh citrus, such as oranges, out for butterflies. They will enjoy drinking the sweet juice!
Think Tiny
Another fun way to interact with nature in your backyard is to think tiny. Yes, I do mean bugs. Go on a mini-safari and search under rocks, logs, and leaf litter in your yard to discover the creatures living underneath! You might find animals such as ants, worms, pillbugs, beetles, millipedes, and centipedes. Other creatures you might stumble across are frogs, toads, mice, snakes, or salamanders. You’ll be amazed at the diversity of life you discover! Please remember to leave all creatures where you find them and don’t try to pick them up.
A fun activity you can do is go on a “3 foot hike.” Cut a length of yarn or string to three feet long and find a spot in your yard to place one end of the string. Make a “path” with your string and then get on your hands and knees (grab a magnifying glass if you have one) to see what you can find on the miniature trail you’ve created!
Other Fun Activities
Create a nature scavenger hunt for you or your family with items such as: a rock, a feather, a leaf, a bug, a piece of trash (then pick it up!), one yellow nature item (or any color), a flower, or a twig. Go on a hunt to see if you can find everything on your list.
Go on a color walk around your yard or around your block and take pictures or make a list of all the different colors that you see in nature.
Create a backyard field guide, recording all the plants and animals you find in your yard. Take pictures of all your “specimens” or draw sketches of them in a notebook. Doing this will help you remember all of the amazing creatures you observed in your yard.