Scout About: Adventures with Sea Creatures

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Our nature adventure happened on an island called Captiva. It is in Florida next to Sanibel Island. We were there with our family and wanted to learn about all the amazing animals and birds and fish.

 

If you have never been there, you will be amazed by seeing so many different kinds of creatures. We couldn't believe how many there were! The place where we stayed had a Sanibel Sea School there. They have a special nature hike called Scout About.

 

Basically, you get a map then follow it to go different places that are near where animals and birds live. Since we're working with ZeBot's Kitchen to learn everything we can about food, we wanted to find out what all these creatures like to eat.

 

ZeBot is a fun zebra who likes adventures so we took him with us and took pictures of him with different Scout About signs.

 

Before we went on our Scout About hike we read a book about local nature things and looked at some other maps.

 

Then we went on our adventure! Here are some of our favorite parts:

 

WHITE IBIS

 

You will see White Ibises everywhere on Captiva! We saw them flying, walking on the beach, looking for food in the grass and fishing in the ponds.

You can tell that they are ibises because they have a long curved bill. It turns out this really helps them eat. What do they eat? They really like fiddler crabs, but they also eat insects and crickets.

 

SEA SHELLS

 

You might not think of shells as animals but guess what? They are! Shells are made by sea animals who use ocean water. The water has nutrients that helps them build a shell. If there is an animal in a shell it's called a live shell and you shouldn't take it. But if the shell is empty it's okay to collect it!

 

BROWN PELICANS

 

Pelicans get their food by diving into the ocean from very high in the air. They catch up to 3 gallons of water and fish in their bills. Their stomachs aren't that big so pelicans have to squeeze out some of the water before they can actually eat.

 

DOLPHINS

 

We love dolphins! They are some of the funnest, most playful animals ever! A dolphin can weigh up to 1100 pounds (wow!) and eats up to 50 pounds of fish a day. We saw dolphins every day. They love to jump up around fishing boats and beg for fish. This reminds us of our dog! Dophins are kind of hard to take picture of because they're so fast. But we got one of their dorsal fins!

 

MERMAIDS

 

Okay, we didn't really see any mermaids. But we WISH we did!