Animal/Bugs

During our trip there was a lot of wild life. From small little bugs to giant birds of prey, they were practically everywhere. From what we heard we expected to see a lot more wild life, but we did see some animals that we would not be capable of seeing in New York. In New Jersey there were allot of bugs. The bugs that bothered us most though were the mosquitoes and horse flies. For some of us, the spiders were a bit creepy to us. The mosquitoes and horse flies were really annoying because they flew in everyone ears and ate us alive. The spiders went in our tent. Even though the insects were pains, it was still a cool to see all the different kinds of bugs. What was even better then the bugs were the birds we saw at V.I.N.S (Vermont Institute of Natural Studies). There were a lot of birds of prey. They had eagles, owls and falcons. It was pretty cool seeing how big they are, how they fly and the maneuvers they use to hunt and kill. They said part about the animals in V.I.N.S is that they are permanently damaged and cannot go back to the wild.

Along with the bugs and the birds of prey we also saw some common wild life like snakes, frogs, toads and some fishes in the New Jersey lake. What really surprised me though was that when we got to our first campsite in Vermont I saw a kangaroo rat. A kangaroo rat is a small little rodent about as big as an gerbil with small front paws, long back legs and a really long skinny tail with a little fluff on the end of the tail. I also saw a really big toad. One of our instructors saw a corn snake and another student saw a baby bear. In Vermont there were also a lot of chipmunks and rabbits. Usually chipmunks are shy but while we were in New Jersey a chipmunks ran across Joshua's foot and he started to scream. While in New Jersey we also saw some ducks and geese in the lake. When it rains, there were a couple of salamanders and there were also a couple of deers out nibbling on grass. I enjoyed seeing how the animals reacted when they saw us, and I enjoyed seeing how everyone reacted when bugs were attacking them. When a lot of spiders started to crawl into the guys tents or when a centipede crawled up Maximo's leg. I think the main reason we had fun on this trip is because we made fun of how wildlife reacted to us and how we reacted to them.