From: http://www.therecord.com/news-story/3896901-kids-get-rare-chance-to-commune-with-butterflies/ July 18, 2013
Julia Green (left) and Brianna Zakrewski chase a butterfly on Wednesday during Summer ECO Camp at the rare Charitable Research Reserve in Blair.
CAMBRIDGE — On the Blair edge of a 900-Acre Wood, gentle hunters pursue their fragile prey.
An impatient army of Piglets and Pooh Bears, decked out in Perry the Platypus flip-flops and shark-head ball caps proclaiming the wearer to be “Jawsome,” will pounce.
They wield butterfly nets that are either too big or too small.
They reek of No. 30 sunscreen and open pots of snack-time hunny.
“I got him!” said 12-year-old Lucas Moniz of Cambridge, as his swooping net gently snared a fluttering North American wood nymph.
This is Week 2 of the rare Charitable Research Reserve’s ECO summer camp for kids ages 6-12. And Wednesday’s lesson was on how to gently snare butterflies and bugs for careful study before the living wonders are happily released on a hot summer wind.
Lucas, one of 20 young students of nature, had a successful safari just a few steps from a flattened-grass “deer bed” outside rare‘s centuries-old slit barn headquarters.
In the soft netting, the wood nymph struggled in a butterfly panic. Lucas tried to calm his precious prize down. No index and thumb. Just a soft touch.
“Come on, buddy,” he said softly. “It’s OK.”
Into a big soft-sided mesh case the nymph went, to be joined soon after by a pearl crescent butterfly.
“Look! A baby monarch!” said Pyper Bedard-Medeiros of Cambridge upon spying a pearl crescent before the excursion into excitement began.
One of rare‘s educators, Kitchener-raised Erica Nickels, carefully corrected the seven-year-old girl. Caterpillars are baby butterflies. Butterflies emerge from the chrysalis full-size.
So, not a baby monarch. Later, Erica shared the secret of the pearl crescent with Pyper, minutes before her older sister Morgan caught her own wood nymph.
This is what a kid gets for $150 a week, coming 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
The chance for gentle hands-on contact with the natural world. Microscopes and magnifying glasses. Daily journals and dropping jaws. No video games. Cameras are only allowed on Fridays. Butterfly nets are provided.
Just then, a six-legged friend danced past the ear of 10-year-old Brianna Zakrewski. She jumped into action and summoned her friend Olivia Finn, 7, for butterfly backup.
“Get it, Olivia! Get it!” Brianna said.
The chase was on. Nets were deployed. The 900-Acre Wood is a wild place.