Every month we publish five or six drawings or photos from our readers in the “Ricky’s Mail” section of Ranger Rick Jr. Ricky is a playful young raccoon who guides kids through the pages of the magazine, and he loves to get mail! We also feature reader mail in a monthly slideshow on our website.

Since our readers love sending us drawings, and we love our readers, we decided to hold a “Draw Ricky” contest for these talented young artists. So send us your best drawing of your favorite little raccoon, Ricky! The winning drawings will be featured in the October issue of Ranger Rick Jr., and the winning artists will receive a Ranger Rick Jr. baseball cap. We’ll also send the winners six complimentary copies of the October issue, so they can share their artistic debut with their family and friends.

Even if your drawing isn’t published in the magazine, there’s still a chance for fame (but maybe not fortune). We’ll be featuring many more of our favorite Ricky drawings on Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Be sure to follow us to see all the drawings and get updates about the contest!

How to Enter

Drawing of Ricky by Julia

1. Create a butterfly garden.

One of the best ways to attract butterflies to your yard is to plant nectar-producing flowers that have red, yellow, orange, pink, or purple blossoms. Plant them in a sunny spot in a group so they grow in clusters.

You can also bring butterflies to you by mashing up fruit and sugar and smearing it on a rock, tree, or other surface in your yard.

Make your garden as butterfly-friendly as possible by putting out a shallow pan of wet sand or mud for them to sip from, and by providing a few rocks they can use to bask in the sun.

2. Sing a song about butterflies.

While you’re hunting for butterflies or working away in your butterfly garden, pass the time by singing a tune about butterflies. Get the lyrics to “Blue Butterfly,” sung to the tune of “Baby Mine,” on our website, or get creative and make up your own.

3. Make a butterfly you can eat.

Fresh fruit is the perfect springtime snack, so use your imagination to whip up a fruity butterfly treat. Use two halves of a pear or a few apple slices for the wings, and for the body try a piece of celery, a carrot, or a banana. Celery or carrot strips also work great for the antennae. Decorate your butterfly with raisins, cereal, cherries, or anything else you like.

For another butterfly recipe, try making butterfly muffins.

4. Learn some fun facts.

Did you know that a butterfly can’t fly if its body temperature falls below 86°F? Or that they drink the tears of turtles? And they use their feet to taste? Curious kids can learn more by checking out this butterfly article from Ranger Rick Jr. and butterfly fact sheet from Ranger Rick.

5. Get crafty.

Use a coffee filter, a pipe cleaner, and pom-poms to make a beautiful butterfly that won’t fly away. Here’s how:

• Decorate the coffee filter with markers and then spray it with water.
• Once it dries, wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of the filter.
• Glue pom-poms onto the clothespin and clip the clothespin to the filter.
• Bend the pipe cleaner to make the antennae.

More butterfly crafts:

• Folded Paper Butterfly
• Butterfly Pencil Topper
• Caterpillar Transformation Craft

Find more fun crafts, recipes, and activities in the Family Fun section of our new Kids website.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was a kid, we spent 75% of the day outside and 25% inside. It’s the total opposite in today’s world. So when we get the chance to take a break from our scheduled lives, we try and make the most of it. I try to get to two new trails a month with the boys.

We’re lucky to live in a place where there are tons of great things to do outside, and I’m sure you do too! It takes just a little effort, but the payoff is tremendous. My sons are proud of the fact that I work to protect the great outdoors. Although I make films for television, I’m tasked with inspiring people to create their own adventures. I’ll talk more about that in my next post, which will detail a day in the life of production here at NWF.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed a quick clip of our day at Great Falls and I hope that you get to have your own adventure. For more information about finding nature near you, visit naturefind. Or if you’d like some fun activities to do when you’re outside, visit our Be Out There site.

Cheers!

National Wildlife Federation’s Storytelling Video Diary Series shares the candid tales of 10 NWF staffers from around the country; armed with their cameras in the Great Lakes, California, South Dakota, the Pacific Northwest, Northern Virginia, and Washington, DC, these nine staffers will share with you their individual trials, epiphanies and stories as they unfold in their daily adventures.

Photolibrary.com

Well, it’s that time of year again! Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It’s time for raking leaves (and jumping in them), sipping spiced cider, and enjoying all the wonderful changes of the season.

In honor of my favorite holiday (yes, I prefer to eat than get presents), we’ve provided a list of wild crafts and activities your kids will “fall” over — all in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Get outside with your kids and work up an appetite!

1. Make a Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Go for a walk and pick up pieces of Fall as you go – beautifully colored leaves, acorns, small pine cones and more. Bring them home and make this easy craft.

2. Make a Snack-o-Lantern

Turn your leftover pumpkins into feeders for backyard visitors such as squirrels, chipmunks and birds. Learn how.

3. Make Pumpkin Prints

Your kids will love making colorful pumpkin prints using nature’s paint brush – a carrot!

4. Make Thanksgiving Place Cards

Get the family involved! These place cards are easy and beautiful to decorate your Thanksgiving table.

Photolibrary.com

5. Pick Apples and Make Autumn Applesauce

Or if you aren’t near an apple orchard, find a local farmers market and pick out some ripe delicious apples to turn into easy autumn apple sauce!

6. Make Delicious Pumpkin Cookies

You’ll bring a smile to your child’s face — and to several dozen cookies — when you make this treat together.

Try these out and let us know what you think! Or share your favorite fall activities with us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Explore more ideas and inspirations for outdoor play at www.beoutthere.org.

Photo Credit: Flickr's Californian Em

Winter has definitely taken hold of my yard. It’s pretty bleak looking with the exception of a winterberry holly still showing off some bright red berries.

With the exceptionally cold days we have had many of my wildlife residents are laying low, but I can always count on a few squirrels out and about to keep me entertained. So it seems appropriate that I should celebrate National Squirrel Appreciation Day on January 21 by giving these furry friends something to munch on as they scrounge for winter food sources.

Yes, there really is such a thing as Squirrel Appreciation Day, founded in 2001 by wildlife rehabilitator Christy Hargrove of Asheville, North Carolina. The most common squirrel in the U.S. is the Eastern gray squirrel which averages a little over 16 inches and weighs about a pound.

Here are some tasty snacks to keep those bushy-tailed acrobats fed when the winter pickins are slim:

• Loop a piece of chain with an eye-screw at its end on a nearby tree branch. Screw on an ear of dried field corn and watch as the squirrels swing and sway while grabbing dinner.
• Smear peanut butter on a pinecone and hang it on a tree, it will keep squirrels occupied for hours.
• Put chunks of stale bread or shelled peanuts on your deck or porch railing. Get ready to watch the show.
• The best way to help out squirrels is to plant native nut and seed producing trees. Oaks, hickories, pecans, walnuts and beeches are just a few of the trees that will not only feed the squirrels naturally but provide shelter and nesting places too.

You can appreciate squirrels and still put them through their paces.  Enroll your local squirrels in the Animal Olympics by creating an obstacle course. Squirrels can actually jump ten times the length of their bodies.

Need some inspiration? See what this guy was willing to do for an afternoon snack. And if adults really want to kick your celebration up a notch, try serving a Flying Squirrel drink.

Get more family-friendly activities to celebrate National Squirrel Appreciation Day from National Wildlife Federation. And share your own squirrel photos, observations, questions, and stories on www.facebook.com/green hour or on Twitter.

Painting my bat house in 2004

Have you ever wanted to build a bat house? Apparently, LOTS of people are interested. How do I know?

Many years ago, I wrote a page on how to build a bat house on National Wildlife Federation’s website. I write lots of content on the site, but this activity was extra fun. I had not really used power tools before, and I am certainly not a wood worker. But I wanted to give it a try.

Building the Bat House

I went to Bat Conservation International’s website. This is a very cool organization which does amazing things to help bats. I downloaded their instructions on how to build a bat house. First I was quite surprised by how big the bat house was going to be. Most bat houses I had seen in local stores were quite small. Perhaps people didn’t want to think they were hosting a HUGE amount of bats. But BCI was quite clear, this was the minimum size for an optimum bat house.

So on September 24, 2004, I managed to build my bat house without much fuss, experimenting as I went along, and taking lots of photos.

People Just Love the Bat House Website

Since that time, the bat house page has consistently been a very popular page on www.nwf.org. All the time, all the seasons, no matter what the issues are, ever since.

We have thousands of web pages on our site, and thousands of people visit the site. But this page just keeps plugging away. We have changed the outside wrapper on it probably four times since then, along with the URL as it moves around in the site.

So far in 2010, it has been viewed 37,297 times and it’s the 52nd most popular page. This may sound low, but we have thousands of pages. The top 50 pages are all higher in the site, or donation pages, or job pages, or relate to the oil spill. This page is way down in the site.

In 2009, it was the 35th most popular page with 87,858 views.

My colleagues featured this article on the National Wildlife Federation’s Facebook page two days ago and already 213 people have liked the article, and 33 people wrote comments. Kristin Johnson, NWF’s Online Editorial Manager, told me that is a very high response, about double from similar articles.

So anyhow, I just think it is fascinating that a bat house page is by far the most popular page in our Garden for Wildlife website, beside actually certifying your yard. People think bats are creepy? I don’t think so. They seem to LOVE them.

So What Happened to the Bat House?

Sawing grooves in my bat house

If you read the article about how to build at bat house, at the end I say “I’ll need to get more information about how to hang it up which I’ll add to this website as soon as possible.” So that was in 2004 and I haven’t added instructions about that to the website. Sorry about that.

I built this bat house back when I had little babies, and as any young mother knows, hanging a bat house doesn’t really reach the top of the “to-do” list. So I gave the bat house to a friend at National Wildlife Federation in the hopes it might get put up here. Unfortunately we don’t know what happened to it. We looked all over, but it’s now been six years and there’s no sign of it. I’m hopeful it is up somewhere in the yard of a keen gardener helping bats. So I should really update the content… as soon as possible.

Good luck with your bat house efforts!

Feel like helping a furry, flying mammal in need? You can symbolically adopt a bat today!

What animals do YOU see in this photo?

Clouds fill the sky, and raindrops fall. But there is sunshine in the autumn leaves—so brilliant against the gray background.

I find myself reminiscing this day, recalling a damp afternoon last fall when my kids and I ventured outside. We gathered leaves and other natural materials and fashioned animals out of them. We had no plan when we stepped out the door, but that’s the beauty of unstructured play: Imagination guides you. And leafy critters—be it a jellyfish or bird on the wing (my favorites in this image)—connect you with nature and one another.

Our backyard is truly my favorite place. Plants, laughter and a sense of wonder all grow there. I hope your neighborhood supports joy-filled green hours too.

Cheers to outdoor play!

They include:

• A fun activity guide for kids
• A guide for educators and parents
• An activity poster (pdf)

For more information on the NWF Be Out There parent’s education campaign please visit our website.

The National Wildlife Federation has teamed with the upcoming feature film Where the Wild Things Are, to launch Be Out There™, a national campaign to get families and kids to spend daily time outdoors for their health, happiness and well-being.

Directed by Spike Jonze and based on Maurice Sendak’s classic book, Where the Wild Things Are is an adventure for every generation, the story of a sensitive and rambunctious young boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to the island of the Wild Things.

As an education partner for the film, National Wildlife Federation shows kids how they can escape into nature and learn about the wild things wherever they live — with activity guides for kids, parents and teachers.

Inside the kid’s activity guide, children can:

• Make their own “Wild Things” Mobile
• Play “Wild Things Bingo”
• Make a crown and scepter – to rule your own island!
• And much more!

Inside the guide for educators and parents, you’ll find:

• Ideas for planning your own Wild Rumpus Day
• Activities that teach children about the wild things that live right in the neighborhood!
• And much more!

Check out the movie, in theaters Oct. 16!

The first thing I do when it gets nice is head outside to relieve my cabin fever. No time like the present, especially during National Wildlife Week (March 16-20, 2009).

You may be wondering how you can dedicate an entire week to celebrate. Here are some ideas:

Three easy ways to celebrate National Wildlife Week:

• Watch for wildlife — Get lists of plants and animals near you
• Get active — See service project ideas for teens and adults
• Pass it on — Get the kids in your life and community outside with free activities

Catch tips about how to watch for wildlife (see the video) before heading out on your adventure.

And remember, your participation in National Wildlife Week is no small contribution. You’re helping to raise awareness about nature, wildlife, playing outdoors, and more!