Night Visitors

Cameron Bowers and Christina Craig, rangers at Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County, have lately been guiding families around Sycamore Canyon at night, with flashlights.

It’s not because people have been losing things in the park and are coming back to hunt for them in the dark. It’s because people nowadays want to see what nature is up to after hours.

“It’s a ‘90s thing,” Bowers said, referring to the public’s rising interest in all things natural--indoors, outdoors and all the time.

While conducting family groups on night visits at various park facilities in the Western states, he has noticed that boys, in particular, like to watch the insect life at night. “It’s mainly a guy thing,” he theorized.

But Sunday night, it will be his colleague Christina Craig who will conduct a group of people, ages 5 and up, around Sycamore Canyon. She has a similar theory about the growing popularity of nighttime park visits but doesn’t see it as just for boys.

“Last time I did the nighttime tour here at Point Mugu called ‘Bats, Bugs and Things That Go Bump in the Night,’ ” Craig said, “whole families showed up--75 people.”

For her the gender issue is moot. Her main concern is that the event, free but with reservations required, will again be overbooked.

It was designed to accommodate 30 people.

“If you write about it,” she said, “please mention that there are also other nighttime events available at Sycamore Canyon and at Carrillo State Beach--call (805) 986-8591.”

When she presents her program Sunday, there will be an interactive aspect: role-playing for all ages and both genders.

One game, Bat and Moth, involves one person playing the bat in an effort to catch the person playing the moth, “just using an echo effect,” Craig said.

It’s one of several ways she has devised, she said, “to show people, through the use of their senses, what it’s like at night for the creatures that live in the park.”

As she guides her group to the various stops on the tour, they will have an opportunity to participate in what she called “hands-on experiments in nighttime hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling and vision.”

“In the smelling [exercise], we use a special technique to augment our own sense of smell,” she said. When pressed, she said, mysteriously, “It’s a surprise. But it’s scientific.”

She knows that people come to these programs mainly to see the creatures that are out at night.

Visitors are asked to bring flashlights, which Craig will cover with red cellophane to minimize the light’s disturbing effect on the creatures, yet will allow folks to see them.

For family members sufficiently interested in the nocturnal natural world to want to read about it, she recommends a book, “Keepers of the Night: Native American Stories and Nocturnal Activities for Children,” by Michael J. Cauduto, a $15 paperback from Fulcrum Publishing.

BE THERE

“Bats, Bugs and Things That Go Bump in the Night,” nighttime exploration of Sycamore Canyon in Point Mugu State Park, 9000 W. Pacific Coast Highway. Sunday, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., for ages 5 and up. Bring your own flashlight; reservations are required (limited to 30 people). Free. Call (805) 986-8591.