The Outdoor and Environmental Education Team, Chicago Park District

Wildlife is all around us. Even if we can’t see or hear animals, they are there, perhaps right under our feet! Many animals have learned to share our neighborhoods.

Use your observation skills to find evidence of animals in your park and around your neighborhood. Keep your eyes open for small clues such as a hole in a tree trunk that is home to an insect, a delicate spider web, a cluster of twigs high in a tree. Don’t forget to take a close look down on the ground.

• pencils
• journal
• binoculars (optional)
• field guides (optional)
• time: 30-40 minutes

The “Animal Neighbors Discovery Walk” will help you think creatively and look closely for animals in your local park and neighborhood. Try this walk, then make up your own. Make shorter lists for young children, and longer ones for older kids.

Search for the items listed, and check off the things you find. Write down anything interesting you find that is not on this list. Discover the many forms of life around you. The key is to make a list and then use your own animal senses to find what’s on it.

Remember to observe animals, but not touch or disturb them. This is for your safety — you never can predict how an animal will react. But it is also for the safety of the animals. A few helpful hints to use during your walk:

• Raccoons like to live in tree holes. About 10′ from the ground is a raccoon’s idea of an excellent home. Look in wet soil or in winter snow. You may be lucky enough to find raccoon tracks.
• Do not be disappointed if you don’t see animals. Animals will see, hear, or smell you long before you see them. They will quickly take cover and stay in hiding until you are gone. You are a great detective for finding evidence of an animal.
• Talk about how we share the same neighborhood with other animals. Sometimes we do not even notice that we are sharing our environment with other living things (like a spider or a worm), but we are. We live together with animals in our own communities and we need to be respectful to our animal neighbors.

• Try this at different times of the year. Notice the changes you observe, and compare what you find each season.
• Keep an “Animal Detective” casebook. Make a different section for each animal, and write down all the evidence of that animal you find, and the date you find it.
• Young children may enjoy bringing a favorite toy on the scavenger hunt to help look.
• Make casts or rubbings of the things you find.
• Use field guides to identify things that you find on your walk.

Make up new scavenger hunt lists - try some of these ideas or think of your own:

• Butterfly
• Fly
• Worm
• Snail
• Ladybug
• Ant
• Millipede
• Centipede
• Slug
• Robin
• Insects in the soil
• Spider web
• Mosquito
• Grasshopper
• Spider
• Caterpillar
• Bee
• Frog
• Bat
• Mouse
• Moth
• A camouflaged animal or bug

• Pigeon
• Crow
• Bird tracks
• Squirrel tracks
• Wasp nest
• Egg shell
• Bugs under bark
• A piece of fur
• Five pieces of man-made litter (Pick these up!)
• Something that makes noise
• Something that reminds you of yourself

• Look in cracks in tree bark, what lives there?
• Sift dirt through your fingers, who lives in it?
• Listen to an animal’s warning sound
• Let a worm wiggle in your hands
• Listen to a bird’s song
• Imitate a butterfly
• Crush a leaf and smell it
• Jump in a puddle, what else is in there?
• Listen to the rain, what animals come out in it?
• Smell a flower, what else visits?
• Hear the hum of insects
• Listen to the wind, feel the warmth of the sun—you’re an animal too!