Wild animals are some of the world's greatest athletes, able to perform amazing physical feats. Are you ready to exercise with the animals of the forest?
Look for hummingbirds feeding on flowers around woodland edges and fields. Hummingbirds flap their wings over 50 times per second! That's a thousand wing-beats in 20 seconds.
How many times can you flap your arms in 20 seconds?
Watch for cottontail rabbits feeding in grassy areas. Rabbits are a favorite food of coyotes, foxes and hawks. When being chased, rabbits sprint in a fast zig-zag pattern until they find cover.
Run as fast as you can for 15 seconds and then find something to hide behind!
Ants are very strong insects, able to lift objects much heavier than their own bodies. If a human was as strong as an ant, they could lift a car! Can you lift your own body weight by doing a push-up?
How many pushups can you do?
To conserve heat and energy, birds of prey such as sharp-shinned hawks often perch on one leg. Locking tendons in their feet allow birds to balance on one leg for hours at a time without falling.
How long can you balance on one leg?
Keep your eyes and ears open for white-tailed deer in the woods and meadows. In order to move quickly through the tall grasses and shrubs, white-tailed deer leap very high sometimes over 6 feet in the air!
How high can you leap straight up in the air?
You may glimpse grasshoppers in areas with short grass or gravel. Grasshoppers can jump 20 times the length of their own body. If you could do that, you would be able to jump almost 100 feet!
Try a long-jump and see how far you can go!
