Fall Frezy: School Break Recap

It sure felt like a fall morning as campers arrived- one camper clocked the temperature at 27 degrees Fahrenheit! This set the scene perfectly for the day’s theme: Fall Frenzy. ​

As it turns out, Colorado animals are pretty well prepared for winter. Many spend the fall season migrating to warmer places, fattening up to hibernate, or making plans and food piles to simply adapt or resist winter weather.

​We started the day sorting different Colorado animals in categories about their response to winter. Some of our animals like pronghorn (antelope), osprey, and deer will migrate from their summer homes to a warmer area for winter. The osprey fly to a different country, but our deer and pronghorn simply migrate from the mountains to warmer plains. Other animals like turtles, frogs, and bears will hibernate through the winter, meaning they find a shelter to settle down and take a long nap until the thaw. We also have animals, like our favorite beaver, moose, elk, and pika that adapt to the winter weather and will stick around and stay active!

After sorting some animals into categories, our campers turned into pika to play a game. Pika are small, but mighty relative to rabbits that live in high elevations in rocky mountain outcrops. About the size of a hamster, don’t think pika shy away from winter! Pika are one of our winter resistors- they make hay piles in front of their rocky homes during fall that they then much throughout winter. Campers had to complete a relay race where they acted out pika behavior during the fall seasons. Luckily, all our campers succeeded in preparations and will live to see another year!

We wrapped up our day with SPREE’s favorite activity- Critter Crawl! Crawdads, or crayfish, are always a favorite River animal to catch during critter crawl. Crawfish don’t really have exciting fall seasons. As winter resistors, crawdads will remain active in the River throughout winter. During winter is when life gets more exciting for crawdads- late winter is when female crawdads will carry eggs that hatch in early spring. We still have many months before we see the next batch of crawdad babies in the River… but by spring break camp we should be able to catch some!