Pond Critter Discovery - FREE - Lakeview Library

Tracking Exploration

Join Coral Conant Gilles, Storytelling Naturalist, for stories about ponds, wetlands, and the critters that live in them at the Lakeview, Madison Public Library. Thank you to the library for sponsoring this FREE event!

This is my favorite program, but I can only offer it during the summer because it relies on booming aquatic macroinvertebrate (water bug) populations! Beginning with stories of wetlands, ponds, and rivers, we dive into the magical world of critters often unseen! With our curiosity heightened, I bring out buckets of pond waters for hands-on exploration. We sift through the wild waters for small creatures like dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, backswimmers, water boatman, aquatic worms, snails, predaceous diving beetles, and much more. Nothing in the wild waters can hurt anyone. These are all small creatures. Occasionally, we are lucky enough to find a minnow, but mostly we're looking at "water bugs." With few exceptions,…