Butteflies and Tadpoles

I have been eagerly reading "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv, which demonstrates how outdoor education and a re-connection with nature improves children's test scores in multiple classes, combats childhood obesity, juvenile diabetes, attention deficit disorder, depression, and generally does very positive things compared to tv, computer games, and traditional teaching methods alone. What we've seen so far with our own kids seems to support the author's conclusions.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed feeding and watching their Painted Lady butterflies in their butterfly garden for several days. In the meantime we also noticed more natural life cycles in our own backyard. Our water garden is quite the nightspot for amorous young toads as evidenced by their nightly singing through the spring and summer months and a bumper crop of tadpoles.

In the past weeks the kids have captured, observed, and played with adult toads, but in recent weeks the tadpoles have grown large enough for the kids to notice from the edge of the pond. However, it's pretty easy to fall into a pond if you're really paying more attention to tadpole's tails than your own two feet, and dark brown tadpoles don't show up well against a background of black Firestone rubber pond liner.

While Heather was at work, the kids and I ventured into the garden with a 2 gallon glass aquarium and a dip net to acquire a few unenthusiastic subjects for observation. I carefully placed the aquarium on the fireplace, not far from their butterfly garden, and the kids scrambled back and forth along the fireplace as little tadpoles wiggled and butterflies fluttered around their temporary homes. So Daddy beamed with pride and fell in love with his latest "great idea", one which Mommy immediately hated when she got home from work as she pondered how in the world she would keep little hands, fingers, toys, and cups out of the nasty pond water.

The tadpoles didn't like their food too much and I read enough to know that they eventually turn to cannibalism, and we all wanted the butterflies to enjoy some freedom during their all too brief 10 day lifespan, so we returned to the garden for a dual release party.

I unzipped the top of the butterfly garden and gently put my hand inside. A butterfly crawled on my hand and stayed there as I pulled it out to show the kids, then he spread his wings and fluttered around the garden landing on the purple summer flox I grow as a tribute to my Granny. After this demonstration, there was no way we could continue without Norah and Justin getting a try.

They were a little anxious, having never touched a butterfly before, and tended to jerk their hands as the butterflies fluttered about. I encouraged them to gently catch and release them. Words cannot adequately describe the result, so hopefully this video does the trick.