It has become a tradition for our graduating class to take a field trip in late May/early June.  We take them to Burying  Hill Beach accompanied by Chris Evers from Animal Embassy.  We hire a school bus — a big one — to take us there and,frankly, the bus ride is a highlight.  Though the trip is only about two miles and takes all of five minutes each way, it’s always a hit.  They chat and look out the window, giggle and smile.  This year, they spontaneously broke out in a rousing rendtion of “The Wheels on the Bus”!

We arrived at the beach before Chris which gave the children the chance to toss small rocks into the water.  When Chris arrived, he gathered them all together to talk about salt versus fresh versus brackish water (mix of salt and fresh water which includes LI Sound).  He talked about the tides (high, low and intertidal zone), sea life, etc.  They played a game called “High Tide/Low Tide” where they ran from one line to the next after he called it out.

Next on the agenda was finding sea life — crabs of all sizes, different kinds of snails, clams, muscles and barnacles as well as different kinds of seaweed.  At Chris’ instruction, they turned rocks over in the “intertidal zone” to find dozens of live crabs.  He showed them how to hold them without being pinched and thenreminded them that they needed to put the rocks back in place because it is the roof of their house.  Some were reluctant to hold the crabs but nearly all tried it by the end of the morning.  He also found two horseshoe crabs — a male and a female — and then set them free into the sound.

Chris also put a net in the water with some fish as bait in the stream that runs in between Burying Hill and Sherwood Island.  All of the children helped pull it out of the water. We caught several large crabs and then told the children how to tell if they were boys or girls. (Boys have narrow tails and girls wide ones to hide the eggs.)  He showed them the points on the crab which he said was a “Green Crab” and then asked them if they knew how to spell.  They answered “no” and he then asked if they “knew the alphabet” and they all started singing again…”A, B, C, D….”  After we had looked at all of the crabs, we set them free again.

Then it was time for a picnic lunch up on the hill, visits to the bathroom and back on the bus.  It was a great day!

Additional pictures from this trip are available for approved CCDC users in “Eileen’s photos”.