Kids explore winter's treasures in outdoor camp

IOWA CITY — A tiny index finger, pulled from a glove, nudges the puffball mushroom, releasing a mist of mustard-colored spores. An eagle-eyed third-grader spots a beaver after seeing some gnawed tree stumps showing the animals' work. A powder-blue bird swoops low over the creek, watched by three quiet elementary students.

'That's a belted kingfisher,' whispered Meredith Caskey, assistant director of the University of Iowa Wildlife Camps. 'We hardly ever see those!'

Thirty elementary students are learning this week to see the wonders of Iowa in winter through the UI's Snowy Owl camp, a popular program that gets kids out from behind TVs and iPads and into the wilderness.

'If I wasn't here, I'd probably be playing Sims 4 on my computer,' said Miranda Ryfe, a fifth-grader at Willowwind School in Iowa City, her cheeks pink from the cold and her wavy hair blowing in the breeze. 'I'm really happy I got in.'

During three Snowy Owl sessions over winter break, students are doing outdoor activities that include banding songbirds, orienteering, exploring creek habitats, shelter building, hiking and finding UFOs — Unidentified Frozen Objects. The three-day camp this week also includes rock climbing and swimming at the UI's Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.

Counselors led the kids on hike Wednesday along Clear Creek on the west side of Iowa City. Although only a half-mile from the Coralville strip, the wooded area was quiet and full of discoveries that included seed pods, deer scat, moss, greenbrier, goldenrod galls, thorny honey locust trees, a paper wasp nest, turkey tail mushrooms and slabs of cloudy ice left on the creek bed.

'I like all the dead flowers and stuff,' said Lily Kealey, a first-grader at Iowa City's Hoover Elementary. 'It makes me think about spring and summer.'

Zach Cicha, 20, a junior studying agronomy and horticulture at Iowa State University, attended Wildlife Camps when he was growing up in Iowa City. He's now a counselor, identifying plants along the hike while helping Kealey, one of the littlest hikers, over clumps of thorny vines.

Iain Garfinkel, a sixth-grader at Iowa City's Lincoln Elementary, hacked a path through the brush.

'I may have gotten stabbed by a few thorns, but it was fun,' he said of the hike.

During a two-day camp before Christmas, campers helped Caskey band songbirds.

'I have a special license to set up mist nets to trap songbirds,' Caskey said. With the students, she weighs and measures the birds and bands them according to federal rules before letting them go. The group banded birds that included woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice and cardinals, she said.

'We learn which ones are around this time of year,' Caskey said.

While human instinct may be to hibernate indoors during the winter, getting outdoors has a host of benefits, including exercise and vitamin D exposure. Animal life can be easier to see because deciduous trees drop their leaves and snow provides a clear palate for animal tracks, Caskey said.

'If you've got the right layers, you're A-OK,' she said.

Sidebar: Interested in taking a New Year's Day hike?, details available here.

Gallery: View a full gallery of photos from the kid's nature hike.

l Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com