Geocaching!

ORRINGTON – Hampden fourth-grade students had studied latitude and longitude in school and as a followup activity, they came to the Nature Center to go geocaching! Described as a high-tech treasure hunt, people around the world are becoming treasure hunters in their own neighborhoods. Using latitude and longitude coordinates, a Global Positioning System unit can pinpoint an exact location anywhere on earth.

Caches are hidden in areas where the public may go for exploration and the coordinates are listed on the geocaching Web site. Hampden students got to experiment with a GPS unit, learned to read a compass and found hidden treasure at Fields Pond.

If you are looking for an excuse to get the family outside for a fun adventure, check out geocaching.com. There is likely a geocache site near you.

Belly sliding

While there was still snow on the ground the plethora of tracks crisscrossing Nature Center property was amazing. The first wonder of tracking happened right behind the nature center building. A rather large pair of bounding tracks emerged from the wetland swampy area into the field.

At first it was a little puzzling, as the footprints had been blown over and only the general pattern was evident. But then an obvious trough followed. It was an otter! It had come up out of the stream, bounded up the trail and then belly slid across the field!

You could just imagine the wondrous sight of a sleek wet otter emerging from the stream, bounding through the forest and then gleefully sliding on its belly as it entered the open field.

Fisher trails

Along the ravine trail there has been an abundance of fisher tracks. Following the ravine trail the fisher crossed the stream, went up the stone steps and traveled the length of our trail before disappearing into the darker reaches of the forest.

Like the coyote that we reported on previously, these wild animals are quite happy to use human-cleared trails if they happen to go in the direction the animal wishes to travel. Fishers are reclusive animals and we were a bit surprised by the number of fisher tracks that we saw. We do know that this is the time of year that female fishers would be looking for suitable den sites to give birth. We could be following the trails of pregnant fishers.

And just in case you wondered – fishers don’t eat fish.

Send sightings, comments, or questions to fieldspond@maineaudubon.org