Tristan's Blog

Last night was an exciting night. At 8:00pm I went to the park with my friends and my sister. My mom and younger brother were supposed to come a little later but something stopped them!

About 9:30 pm my friends and I came home to my place. We went inside my house but we couldn’t find my mom. We looked in the back yard and then my sister yelled “I see her! I see her!”.  She was in the yard across the street with our neighbour and my little brother trying to catch a bunny!

It was a little white bunny and my mom was crouching down chasing him. I was curious about what was going on so I ran over but my mom sent me back home because I could have scared the bunny and there were enough people helping. My mom was trying to help the bunny but it didn’t know that so it kept running away. The bunny belonged to the house across the street and its owners were camping so they didn’t know the bunny had escaped. He dug a hole under the fence and couldn’t find his way back to it.

Finally my mom caught the bunny, but he squirmed which made my mom drop him and then he got really scared. Then, another neighbour came to help. The neighbour brought his son which wasn’t much help because he moved too fast for the bunny which made it super scared and harder to catch. It was frustrating for my mom because she almost had gotten it and she had been trying for over an hour. She tried feeding it clover, lettuce, carrot and celery to get close enough to it so someone could pick it up. A second idea they had was trying to put a cardboard box over top of it to scoop it up. None of these worked because the bunny was too fast and not hungry.

After an hour and a half the bunny must have been worn out because our neighbor was finally able to grab him. He ran to the bunny cage and put it inside and almost dropped it a couple times! Then my mom locked it up and made sure it had food and water and the next day we checked on it to make sure it wasn’t too hot. When the neighbours got back we told them about our bunny adventure and they said thanks for helping the bunny out. They said we were nice people and we can check on the bunny whenever they’re gone. I really like the little bunny and I plan on visiting it soon.

image: My albino rabbit pet by Ritscent released under a CC Attribution – Noncommercial – Share Alike license

The California mantis shrimp is so cool! It eats mussels by using its powerful claws as a hammer which is very smart. It’s 10 inches long and pink like most shrimp but it has blue and red butterfly wings as a tail and below its head. This helps it camouflage and look scary to predators when it stands up. When it stands up it also looks like a praying mantis because of its big eyes and claws.

It’s the most powerful animal for its size in the world! A mantis shrimp’s claws are as fast as a 22 caliber bullet. Isn’t that awesome? If I ever find one I don’t think I’d pick it up just in case it uses its claws on me.

Did you know it isn’t really a shrimp? It got its name because it just looks like a shrimp. The funniest thing about it is it gets stranded during low tide. Its back legs don’t work well on dry land because they’re meant for water. So it curls up and rolls forward like a wheel into the closest tidal pool. That is hilarious!

What is the coolest thing you’ve learned about the mantis shrimp?

image: Mantis Shrimp by prilfish released under a CC Attribution license

Turtles are fantastic! First, they are cool because they start with the first letter of my name, but they are also lovable. You probably think turtles are slowpokes, but I saw one at a store that moved so fast! I was so surprised that it moved quickly. It might have thought that my family and I were predators or it was trying to catch its breakfast.

I also have seen wild turtles at the Recovery Center. There were lots on a log and more in other places. I got so close to one. I was 30 cm away, but I wasn’t allowed to touch it.

Don’t forget to wash your hands after you pet one. They can carry diseases on their shells. You can still touch one and I think you should because they are awesome.

CC image: Baby Turtle by Fotodawg