Despite early morning rain showers and brisk temperatures, over 200 children descended on the Ladd Arboretum on McCormick Boulevard in Evanston on Saturday, April 4, with one goal in mind: be the first to collect the most wooden Easter eggs to return to Mother Wood Duck’s nest, the keeper of the woodlands.
Julian Donahue, 3, has been to a couple of the Ecology Center’s annual egg hunts, but this year, his mother said, he was excited for his first time participating in the “big kid hunt.”
“His sister Violet was telling him he needed to go back to the little kid area and he just was like, ‘no, what do you mean? That’s not for me. I’m a big guy,’” his mother, Cora Donahue, said with a laugh.
“The last couple of years it’s rained, or it rained a lot the night before, so it was all muddy. It’s a tradition at this point, you know you’re gonna get muddy,” Donahue added. “They’re gonna run around and have a great time [regardless].”
Donahue said the egg hunt — which is slated to last around 10 minutes or so — usually ends in a couple of minutes.
“The first year we came I think it was over in four minutes,” Donahue said.
She said she was happy they moved the event back to the Arboretum this year, after relocating it in years past due to building and landscape refurbishment efforts at the Ecology Center.
Now with the center fully back open, it’s gearing up for its busiest season of the year.
Following a wrap-up of the Saturday Indoor Farmers’ Market at the end of the month, the Parks, Recreation, & Community Services Department will be hosting Earth Week from April 20 to 25 and prepping for the start of its popular summer programming beginning in June.
Margaret Isaacson, the conservation and outdoors division manager for the Ecology Center, said that even though the Arboretum Egg Hunt has been put on for nearly 20 years, every year the Park Services team tries to create more environmentally-conscious activities.
“Because we’re the Ecology Center, we try to make it as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible,” Isaacson said. “A couple of years ago we switched from plastic eggs to painted wooden eggs that the kids collect, and then have [the children] return them to be reused to our event mascot, the Wood Duck, which is one of our lovely program instructors.”
While the egg hunt may have been the main event for the day, families were welcome to partake in a number of nature-themed activities, including roasting egg-shaped marshmallows over a small outdoor fire pit, embarking on a scavenger hunt to locate over 20 local animal species residing in the Arboretum and playing a number of games like “cotton-tail toss,” egg and spoon relay race and a bunny hop.
Due to high demand, the egg hunt was separated into four waves of two age groups, with the first wave beginning at 10 a.m.
After the 750 hand-painted wooden eggs are returned to Mother Wood Duck, participants received a craft pack of nature-related goodies.
“A lot of families appreciate that we don’t over sugar their kids,” Program Coordinator Ethan Johnson said.
“Our goal is to offer families an alternative to some of the other egg hunts that’s also really fun and teaches kids about nature. And there’s gonna be a bunch of animal artifacts [included] where they could learn about each of the animals [in the Ladd Arboretum].”
Johnson said the event also works to highlight the work Ecology Center stewards do every week to improve the Arboretum’s natural reserves, like nature trail maintenance, botanic garden conservation and animal preservation efforts.
“We see tons of wildlife throughout the year, mink and beavers and coyotes, and lots of different types,” Johnson said, “There’s a tree over there that’s been chewed on by beavers, snapping turtles lay their eggs on the trail,” all of which are included in the scavenger hunt, he said.
Leo Gerber, 1, was able to participate for the first time this year, alongside his mother, Logan Gerber.
As an Evanston resident, Gerber said her family are avid visitors to the Ladd Arboretum, especially in the summertime.
“With my oldest, we’ve done kayaking on the canal, learned about the wildlife around here — it’s been fantastic.”
Although Gerber said she’s never spotted a beaver at the Arboretum yet, with the amount of time her family spends here, she’s hopeful she’ll come across one eventually.
