Feature/General
Nature Hikes
By John McKinney
April/May 2003

Living in north Georgia, we’re surrounded by forested areas with walking/hiking trails. Take advantage of the locale by going on a nature hike. You won’t need to cover a lot of ground to find lots of interesting stuff and get your kids excited about the outdoors.

Pick a sunny day, toss some snacks and water in a daypack and head to one of the nearby state or local parks. You may even want to purchase a local guidebook that identifies plants and animals and take it with you. Stop along your hike and try to figure out the birds, trees, wildflowers, etc. that you run across while on your journey. Bring along a small sketchpad and draw what you see. And remember to leave what you find in the forest. After all it may be a part of an animal’s home or diet.

Here’s a short list of things to search for the next time you’re out for a walk.

• Find a wildflower of each color of the rainbow.
• Spot a wild animal. Small ones like squirrels, songbirds and lizards are common. Larger, more secretive animals are a rare find so also...
• Look for animal tracks in the mud. After a rainy night, you may find the footprints of deer, raccoons, bobcats, turkeys and others.
• Explore different types of trees. Compare the needles and seed cones of pines to the broad leaves and thick-shelled nuts of hickories and oaks.
• Listen for different bird songs.
• Bring a plastic bag and pick up trash that you find and pack it out. This will make the next person’s hike even more enjoyable.
• Look for turtles basking on logs and rocks at the water’s edge.
• Search for animal homes, like woodpecker holes in standing dead trees and bird and squirrel nests in branches overhead.
• Turn over a dead log to uncover salamanders, beetles and termites. Turn it back after looking.
• Learn to identify poison ivy and how to avoid it. Compare it to other common vines like Virginia creeper and muscadine grapevine.