Blue Jay Point Memories
Our Most Memorable Moments at Blue Jay Point When I woke up
on Monday, April 17th I was excited and curious about Blue Jay Point. By the
time I got to school everyone was ecstatic. It seemed like no one could concentrate
on Math and in Art-people were talking about Camp Blue Jay. Little did I know
that the greatest field trip in the history of Green Elementary was awaiting
me. As we arrived we put our luggage in the shed and went to play a very fun
game called 'Quick Frozen Critters". It is a game where at one side of the
field there is a primary base. The other side is a Food Source. The prey have
to run back and forth trying to get food from the food source. Sounds easy
but it is not because in the middle are predators. They have red vests so
it is easy to tell where they are. Another thing that helps the prey is hula-hoops
in the middle of the field called temporary shelters. This is where prey can
hide from the predators. The predators had to get the white flags from the
prey. Once the predators got your flag you were out. Another thing that helped
the prey was they could freeze if a predator was near. As long as a prey is
frozen, predators can not get them. The next highlight was when we made shirts.
We used fabric paints to put leaf prints on the shirts. On mine I wrote "Blue
Jay Point 2000" and put 4 little bees around the words. Then I took small
leafs and put them all around. On the sleeves are two big leaves.
My trip officially started when we went on the beaver hike.
It was a nice size trail so I got a bunch of exercise out of it. When we got
to the end of the trail and searched around for awhile we found a bunch of
gnawed and fallen trees, and even a beaver dam. After the hike I decided to
go fishing with the majority of the class. Ryan allowed me to borrow one of
his many fishing rods. It was a short 1/5 of a mile hike down to the lake.
Ryan's mom had to fix the rod up for me. I only got to cast once and I got
stuck on a log. Katherine caught a fish and Will caught a fish and snake(The
snake had bitten into the fish.).
One of my most memorable moments was when Mr. Honeycutt, from
the Astronomy Club, came in and brought slides of planets and stars. He told
us that if you drove a car 65 miles per hour to our nearest star, it would
take you 59,000,000 years to get there. Jupiter has a hurricane on it that
is so big it can fit the Earth in it twice, and Pluto is only about as big
as our Moon. He told us that light can travel around the world 7 times in
less than a second. I never knew that about space before.
In our pond life workshop we watched a sideshow about various
inhabitants of the pond. Then we went out and caught some of out own! We caught
dragonfly nymphs, a baby dragonfly, backswimmers, a bug that swims on its
back, lots of tadpoles, and several snails. We had been hoping to find whirligig
beetles and diving beetles but had no luck. It was still fun to watch all
the little bugs and tadpoles scurry about the bottom of the buckets.
The second day we went to camp, we went to the Main Office.
There at the Main Office, we met this guy named Jason. Jason told about insects,
he told us about insects I did not even know about. After he told about insects
he took us to a little pond. There Jason gave us some nets and buckets. Each
of the nets were needed to catch insects and then we put our insects in the
bucket. I had a terrific time trying to catch insects.
I was so excited when we dissected the born owl pellets. My
partner did not want to touch it at first. But when I showed her all the bones
and she would pick them up. Our owl pellet was about 2 1/2 inches with a small
white wash. My partner and I were so lucky, we got the biggest skull.
My most memorable moment was when we went on a night hike. It
was dark and people were scared-but I wasn't scared at all. We had to watch
where we were going. So people tripped over roots and I ran into a tree! Our
guide Ms. Ellen was calling out to the owls, but we didn't hear any answer.
She called out to the Great Horned Owl, Screech Owl, and Southern Barn Owl.
We also went down to the water to see if we could hear or see a beaver. On
our way back up the trail we called to owls again, but nothing answered. When
we were off the trail and in the light, Ms. Ellen told us we were the best
sneakers.
We went Night Hiking and called owls with Ms. Ellen. First she
told us about the Barn Owl who is a popular owl. First I thought she said
Barn Owl. Then she told about the Screech Owl who is very small. Next we went
into the sandy pond trail. Then Ms. Ellen called the Barn Owl. She was saying, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?"-no answer. Then she started to
get deeper and deeper into the B.J.P. woods. Then the she called the Screech
Owl-still no answer. While we were walking or heading down to Falls Lake she
cut the flashlight on so if we could see a beaver or beaver flap their tale
as a warning. Then we headed back up. It was a wonderful hike. I just wish
we could have seen some owls.
The night we took the night hike was really freaky. It was really
windy and cold. We called for owls but none answered. Although we didn't hear
owls I heard some other sounds of nature, like the wind blowing through the
trees and little creatures rustling in the leaves on the ground. It was really
freaky!
Then there was the night hike led by Ms. Ellen, which was really
fun! We called owls and looked for beavers. The owl calls go like this: Barred
Owl "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for y'all?". Barn Owl "Who's awake me too!!!".
It was a very cold night and everyone was huddled together. Colleen and Laura
were scared and in the beginning I was too. But in the end I thought it was
exciting. Ms. Ellen was very talented at making the owl calls, and she made
the legend that she told us suspenseful.
On Tuesday we roasted marshmallows inside at the fireplace.
The boys accidentally caught them on fire, took them out and let them sit
for three seconds. They tried to blow out the flame but the marshmallows were
like trickery candles. So they needed more than one person to blow the fire
out. Then it was my turn to roast marshmallows and one dad told me to put
it near the smoke, that it would roast it from inside out, instead of outside
in.
The Blue Jay Point field trip was the best yet out of all of
my field trips. I thought that Old Salem in the fourth grade was fun but it
was no comparison to Blue Jay. If you have already been to Blue Jay Point
I'm sure you will agree with me that it was surely the best field trip ever.
