Animal Tracking is a Fun Activity for Kids
While camping, it's important to keep your children busy and engaged. Children today are so reliant on technology such as TV, phones, and tablets for entertainment that it may be hard for them to disconnect while camping. That's why it's vital to find some outdoor activities to show them other forms of entertainment that don't include technology. One of the best outdoor activities to share with your kids is animal tracking. It's fun, informative, and a perfect way to connect with your child.
The Basics of Animal Tracking
While animal tracking, it's important to note that you may not actually find any animals, and that's okay. It's just as fun to find tracks and try to identify the animal that left those tracks without ever seeing it. Let's go over some of the ways animals leave tracks behind.
Animal Prints
Many animals leave behind a kind of foot print. Look for these while on a hike or around your campsite. Prints are left easier if it's a little wet or muddy, so be sure to focus your attention on areas by water. Once you do actually find some prints, it should be fairly simple to identify what kind of animal left them. There's plenty of resources in books and online that show the different kinds of animal prints. Just compare the print you found to a resource and boom, you have your animal.
Animal Droppings
Yes, we're going there! While it may be kind of gross to think about, you can identify an animal just by its droppings. Much like the prints, you can find charts and diagrams that show the different kinds of droppings and which animal they belong to. While I don't recommend messing with the dropping, you might be able to see what the animal was eating by inspecting the droppings. Different animals eat different things, so this may help you get a better idea of what animal you are tracking.
Disturbances in Nature
Another more advanced way to track an animal is to find things in nature that look out of place. This includes things like trampled grass, broken branches, and even rubbings or scratches on bark. Although it's not likely you will be able to tell which kind of animal left these disturbances, it's still interesting and enjoyable to find these out of place things and guess what happened. Make up a story with your child about what you think happened to make this disturbance occur. It's also worth your time to just sit and listen. You can gather a lot of information by just listening to the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, or the snap of a twig.
Conclusion
Tracking animals is a great way to bond with your family while keeping the little ones actively engaged. Once you explain to them what to do, they should be focused on finding tracks, droppings, or other evidence of animal life. It will keep them busy and having fun with a sort of informative scavenger hunt. Just a reminder, if you do happen to actually run into some animal wildlife, be sure to keep your distance. Observe from afar so you don't disturb them in their home.
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