Parks and Recreation

WPNC Junior Naturalist

spiderAll Eyes on Insects!

Earn your Butterfly Patch in 2008

Learn all about insects by completing the requirements of this year’s Junior Naturalist program and attending one of the many free programs offered at the Nature Center. Children aged 6 to 12 years are encouraged to attend the Kick-off program on Tuesday, March 18, from 10a.m.-Noon and participate in our Mission Insectible program on Thursday, March 20. Children attending these programs will be well on their way to completing all of the requirements in the Junior Naturalist brochure, which is available at the Nature Center front desk.

Insects are virtually everywhere – with little effort you can find them on land, in soil, in water, in the air and in your home! The 2008 Warner Park Jr. Naturalist patch celebrates the diverse group of animals we call insects. Although there are certainly some insects with a bad rap (think mosquitoes and boll weevils!), insects bring beauty to our lives, serve as a vital link in the food chain, are important as pollinators and scavengers and provide us with products such as honey, silk, and beeswax. We’ve all been enchanted by the glow of a firefly, delighted by a ladybug’s polka dots or captivated by the graceful flutter of a butterfly. Warner Park is an ideal place to have more interesting insect encounters. In the spring and summer, the Hungry Hawk Meadow appears alive as grasshoppers leap from one plant to the next. Spittlebug spit shines on plant stalks and moths and butterflies flit from one nectar-filled flower to another. The garden is a great place to look for both helpful and harmful insects. Look for the bejeweled case of a monarch hanging from a leaf, for tiny aphids sucking sap from a juicy plant and for ants harvesting the sweet excretions from the aphids. On the pond’s edge, you might spy a dragonfly emerging from its exoskeleton or see a funny whirligig beetle whirling through the water. If your eyes are on insects, you just never know what you might find.

For more information or to register for programs, call the Nature Center at 352-6299.