There are few rules to hiking beyond “leave no trace” and “stay on the trail,” but another unspoken one is “give other folks their space.” In other words, polite hikers have been practicing “social distancing” for ages! Just because kids don’t have school to go to for the time being doesn’t mean we all have to spend the next bit of time cooped up in the house. In fact, the natural world has kept on doing its thing while we’ve been busy with math assignments and playdates and seemingly endless meetings, and spring is the perfect time to get back out there. The Urban Ecology Center’s mission to connect people in cities to nature isn’t going anywhere, and this is the first in a series of blog posts with ideas on how to keep getting outside.

I stopped to talk to Carol, the Tuesday afternoon receptionist at Riverside Park, on my way in from teaching. Carol is so lovely; I’ve really enjoyed getting know her over the years via a mutual love of reading and traveling, and I always look forward to our Tuesday chats.

Today she offered to lend me a great book she’d just finished and I told her about the snake I’d found on a hike this afternoon. After I returned to my office, the phone started ringing.

I wanted to know how much the second graders visiting the Center that morning already knew about pollination, so I asked, “Can you name an animal that might want to eat nectar from flowers?”

“A bee!”

“Yes! Any others?”

“Bats?”

“Yep, some of them do!”

“Butterfly?”

“Absolutely!”

“Pikachu!”

His answer caught me off guard. I’m used to kids spotting sharks and alligators in the lagoon at Washington Park — and even the occasional troll under the bridge — but Pikachu?