Mother Nature is filled with riddles and Brother Nature thought up most of them. He’s a trickster who thinks he can outsmart folks like you. Test your skills by trying to solve his riddles along the trail.

Try these for practice:

Who is the forest’s jolliest resident?

What stays in one spot but always moves to the sea?

Now find a neat natural item and create your own riddle for it in your Adventure Journal. Try to solve each other’s riddles.

You need sharp eyes to find riddle clues in nature. Search for these natural items as you walk to the next stop:

• a cone
• a neat leaf
• a rock as big as your thumb
• a tiny cave or hole in the ground
• an insect
• something yellow
• a tiny tree
• something shiny

Quick Riddle: How are the letter “A” and a flower the same? … A “B” comes after them.

Many creatures, such as bees and butterflies, depend on plants for food. They suck nectar from flowers. Find a flower nearby, or a bud or a seed (this means it has a flower at some point in its life cycle). Now figure out what action the butterfly is doing in Brother Nature’s Action Riddle:

I land on the colourful flower,
Though delicate, I have great power.
Into the flower my long tongue is sinking,
It is nectar that I am …

To survive, some butterflies use camouflage to blend in and hide from their predators. Can you spot camouflaged butterflies?

1. Choose one person to place the butterfly cutouts in a defined area. They must be fully visible from above.
2. Flap your butterfly wings as everyone searches for them.
3. Take turns hiding the butterflies.

Which butterfly colours are easiest to find? Does the background colour where the butterfly is placed make a difference?

Explore and find a neat moss-covered rock or tree. Get down on your hands and knees and look at the moss closely with your scope. Can you find tiny thin stalks coming out it? What other cool features do you see? Here is Brother Nature’s Action Riddle for the moss:

I capture the light of the sun,
In all my green parts, every one.
This energy must keep on flowing
To help me as I am …

Mossy rocks make good pictures. Take a picture of your rock:

1. Hold your frame tool at arm’s length in front of you.
2. Zoom it up close or zoom backward to get just the right picture of your rock.
3. Share your picture with others.

Take some more pictures using your frame tool along the stream. Look for neat patterns, closeups and water scenes. Take an underwater shot or a sky shot up a tree.

Quick Riddle: Though a knight may try to slay me, I can fly too fast for her to see. Who am I? … Dragonfly

One ferocious butterfly predator is a dragonfly. They can fly over 100 km an hour! Can you spot a dragonfly near the stream? Here’s the dragonfly’s action riddle:

That butterfly was a sweet snack.
I came from behind to attack.
My wings, how they flutter with speed,
To take me wherever I need.
Around my wings the air does sing,
With great speed I am …

Dragonflies seem to dance and hover in the air as they fly. Create their hover dance:

1. Find eight leaves with different shapes. They’re your dancers.
2. Stand on a high spot near the stream. The stage is below.
3. Twirl each dancer’s stem between your thumb and forefinger as you throw it in the air.
4. Have everyone watch each dancer flutter to the ground.

On the way to the next stop, search for dragonfly prey such as butterflies or insects.

Quick Riddle: What did the frog say to her visitor? …Welcome to my pad!

Frogs and toads love to warm up on the rocks near the edge of the water on a sunny day. They look out at the mini-moss forests nearby:

1. Find a mini forest nearby (a moss-covered log, stump or rock with tiny plants growing on it).
2. Use your scope to focus on a small section of it.
3. Swoop your head down close to the surface.
4. Look for tiny trees, valleys, mountains and little creatures.

Hungry frogs in this pool would love to eat a juicy dragonfly! Figure out the frog’s action riddle:

I try to catch the speedy dragonfly.
A hop from my legs sends me high.
As I go up my heart is thumping,
Don’t you know that I am …

Try to spot a frog in the stream. Don’t try to catch it as a frog is easily injured.

Did you find anything a frog or toad would eat? Do a frog hop to the next stop.

Quick riddle: Where do fish sleep ? …On a river bed!

Mi’kmaq have been fishing in places such as this for thousands of years using weirs. Reflect for a moment that people have been living in this area for 1000s of years. See if you can build a mini weir for trapping fish here on the stream bank like they do, although they would build it in the water. Here’s how…

• Collect lots of small, short sticks (about 15 cms) and poke them in the ground in the formation of a “V”.

• Weave thin tiny twigs or dead grass or plants in between the sticks to create walls on the sides of the “V”. These walls hem the eels and fish in where they can be trapped and caught.

Consider how different your life would be if you were a Mi’kmaw youth helping to build weirs and living here many years ago before European settlers took this land.

Quick Riddle: Where do frogs keep their money? …In the stream bank

As a frog, watch out for bird predators above you with a special eye in the sky :

1. On the side path, hold your eye in the sky (mirror) at waist level.
2. Walk slowly along the side path while you look down into the mirror.
3. Check out the sky and the neat shapes in the tree branches as you walk.
4. When you find something neat, look up and try to find it with your real eyes.
5. See if the others can find it too.

Continue to the edge of the lake, use your scooper to sample the bottom in the shallow area. What could a frog eat?

Oops, the frog jumped in the lake and was eaten by a fish. Solve the action riddle for the fish.

After having a frog for lunch,
I would like to rest a whole bunch.
I take oxygen from the lake,
My gills work without a break.
With no lungs like you for heaving,
Still I do lots of …

Quick Riddle: Which birds spend all their time on their knees? …Birds of prey

Too bad that fish didn’t have an eye in the sky. She would have seen the osprey coming. Solve this action riddle for the osprey.

I grabbed that big fish with a splash,
And gulped it down in a flash.
It slid down my throat so yummy.
Now the fish fills up my tummy.
You know that I am not jesting,
The fish inside is …

The osprey often sees deer in this area. Look for deer signs as you walk to the next stop:

• tracks
• dark brown, teardrop-shaped droppings the size of a peanut
• tree bark that is frayed or marked up (where a male deer has rubbed the velvet off its antlers)
• plant tips that have been shredded (deer munching)

Quick Riddle: I look a little nutty hanging up in a tree with a cap on. Who am I? …Acorn

Now search for food that the fish eat (that’s what in turn gives the osprey its food):

1. Use your scooper to collect mud and debris from the bottom of the river.
2. Search for little creatures in the mud.
3. Return your catch to the water at the end.

Here are some things to look for as you scoop…

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Take a picture of the coolest thing you scoop up and upload it at the end if you choose.

Oops, the osprey has to hurry to its nest. Solve its action riddle:

My nest has two white eggs,
Which I cushion under my legs.
So that my population does not reduce,
More young I must …

You’ve encountered many creatures and solved Brother Nature’s action riddles. Figure out what they have in common and use this as a clue to his final riddle:

Created or destroyed I cannot be,
Only transformed you see.
I’m none other than …

Now see if you can create an energy poem in your Adventure Journal. Here are the creatures that have been featured in the riddles: butterfly, hawk, dragonfly, flower, fish, frog. Write them in a list of who eats whom. Then put the action riddle word for each creature next to its name. Use the creatures and the action words for the poem along with any extra words you need.

Find the hidden plaque on your return. It’s near the bridge around the guardrail. Use your pencil to make a rubbing of it’s mystery creature in your Adventure Journal.

The plaque symbol is: