I love fall! We begin a new school year with excited students, perfect sunny days and beautiful changing leaves. Fall is also when I get to teach a class that brings kids into the water to look for macroinvertebrates. It’s one of my favorite classes to teach.

The program begins with the students tucking in their shirts and climbing into waders to explore the Milwaukee River. We hand them kick nets and bins to hold the benthic invertebrates they find. As we head to the river, there is nervous excitement. It is fun to watch the first groups get their bearings in the water.

Last year, while brainstorming ideas for summer camps, I suggested a photography camp for middle school aged campers. This summer was the first year, to my knowledge, that we offered a photography camp, and I was lucky enough to lead it.

On the first day of “I Spy…Birds!” Camp, the campers arrived excited for a fun week of camp. Some were thrilled about the prospect of spending a whole week learning about and searching for birds.  Others were just excited to be at the Urban Ecology Center.  And some were skeptical and needed some convincing that birds were worthy of being studied for a whole week of their summer.  The skepticism was short-lived, however, as they received their binoculars and started paging through their new bird field guides (which were theirs to keep, thanks to funding from the Wisconsin Society of Ornithology and discounted binoculars through Eagle Optics.)