Teaching at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary

On Monday, Val and Philip, employees at Felix Neck, taught me how to teach Tank Time.  First they taught me how to feed the live animals inside the wildlife sanctuary.  Philip, Val, and I went hunting for worms.  We also got mealworms, squid, and apples ready.  During Philip's talk, we fed the animals.  

On Wednesday, I got to team teach Tank Time with Val.  The first thing I taught the visitors about was the eastern box turtle.  I got to hold the turtle while talking.  

Do any of you know why a box turtle is called a box turtle?  If you know the answer, leave a comment.  I will post the correct answer in a couple of days.  

You should watch this video of the turtle eating his food.  

Then we moved on to the spotted turtle.  It was once put on the endangered watch list but because of good conservation and educational practices the spotted turtle population has been brought back.  

This is me feeding the spotted turtle.

 Now on to the corn snake.  The corn snake is not native to Martha's Vineyard, but the milk snake is.  The corn snake is the same size and has the same coloration as the corn snake.  

The next animal I taught the visitors about was the green frog.  It is a sight eater and will not know their food is there unless it is moving.  

Check out this video

The last tank was the salt water tank.  In this tank there were blue crabs, sand eels, pipefish, black-fingered mud crabs, Asian shore crabs, green crabs, flat-clawed hermit crabs, long-clawed hermit crabs, periwinkles, and silver sided minnows.  They all ate squid.

I enjoyed teaching the visitors about the animals.  My favorite part was holding the box turtle.  If you live on Martha's Vineyard or are visiting Martha's Vineyard, I recommend you check out Felix Neck's Tank Time or their other programs.  http://www.massaudubon.org/learn