This is a nature walk bingo printable free of sign-ups: 104 things to spot, with 26 each for the woods, a park or meadow, the beach, and the sky, sounds and signs that turn up anywhere. Print a card per walker.
Read the full guide
Match the list to your walk
A beach square is dead weight in the woods, so pick your place in Ready-made list: In the woods, Park and meadow, Beach and shore or Sky, sounds and signs. Each holds 26, so the cards share most squares and differ in where they sit. Then press Enter after any square and type your own: the old oak, the footbridge.
Spot it, mark it, leave it
Nothing on the card is picked, caught, fed or carried home, except one square for a piece of litter. A find counts once a second walker has seen or heard it. The rule follows the Leave No Trace advice the US National Park Service prints: leave natural objects as you find them, and observe wildlife from a distance.
Tape each card to cardboard and tie on a pencil. With no printer, open this page on a phone and tap squares to mark them.
For a short loop, switch Grid to 3 × 3: a line takes two or three finds.
Walk the route again in a new season. Some squares, such as the curled fiddlehead, turn up for only part of the year.
Questions and answers
What if we finish the walk without a line?
The card with the most marks wins. Some squares depend on season, weather and luck: a woodpecker may not drum, and no beach promises sea glass. Picking the list for your kind of place before printing gives every square a fair chance.
Can a big group play?
Yes. Set How many cards to the number of walkers, up to 60, and no two match. The nature bingo printable is free however many you print. Back indoors, press Call the game: each call draws a square, and the group recalls who spotted it.
Why are so few animals named?
Animals do not turn up on demand, so most squares are plants, shells, sounds and signs, such as a paw print or a cone with tooth marks. The birds stay general: a bird carrying something. For species, try bird bingo, bug bingo or wildlife bingo.
All 104 squares
In the woods 26
Acorn or acorn capThe acorn is the nut of the oak, and it sits in a cup-shaped cap.
Berries on a bushLook only. Never taste a wild berry.
Bracket fungus on a trunkAlso called shelf fungus. The woody shelf is known as a conk, and its underside is covered in pores.
Curled fern fiddleheadA new frond uncoils from a tight spiral called a fiddlehead. A spring square.
Fallen log
Fern frondFerns have neither seeds nor flowers. Their spores form in clusters on the underside of a frond.
Hollow in a tree trunk
Leaf bigger than your hand
Leaf with a jagged edge
Lichen on barkA lichen is a fungus and an alga living as one. It can look like a plant, but it is not one.
Moss on a logMosses have no flowers and no seeds. They spread by spores.
Mushroom with a capA mushroom is the fruiting body of a fungus, which bears its spores. Look and leave it: a number of kinds are poisonous.
Nut or cone with tooth marksAny shell, nut or cone that something has gnawed.
Show all 104 squares (91 more)
In the woods, continued
Open pine coneThe woody cone is female and holds the seeds. Cones open in dry air and close in wet.
Peeling papery barkBirch bark is marked with long horizontal lines and often separates into thin, papery plates. Look, do not peel.
Pine needles underfoot
Sapling shorter than you
Sunbeam through the branches
Tree roots across the path
Tree stump with ringsMany trees add one ring a year, with the newest next to the bark. A wide ring points to a good growing season.
Tree too wide to hugHouse rule: your fingers cannot meet on the far side.
Two trunks from one base
Vine climbing a trunkSpot it from the path. Poison ivy can grow as a climbing vine, and it gives most people who touch it an itchy rash.
Winged seed that spinsMaple and ash seeds sit to one side of a papery wing, so they spin as they fall and the wind carries them farther from the tree.
Woodpecker drummingDrumming is how most woodpeckers signal without using their voice. It is mainly a territorial call, like another bird's song.
Woodpecker holes in a trunkWoodpeckers dig insects and grubs out of living and dead trees.
Park and meadow 26
Bee on a flowerWatch from an arm's length and let it work.
Bird hopping on the grass
Bird perched on a fence
Butterfly on the wing
Cattails by the waterCattail in American English, bulrush in British English. The sausage-shaped spike breaks up into cottony fluff that carries the seeds on the wind.
Clover patchClover leaves usually have three leaflets. A four-leaf clover is a rarity and is counted as lucky.
Daisy in the grassThe name is thought to come from day's eye: the flower head shuts at night and opens again in the morning.
Dandelion clockThe round seed head is sometimes called a blowball or a clock. Each seed hangs from a fluffy parachute that glides on the wind.
Duck tipping tail-upDabbling ducks feed mainly at the surface, often by upending, and only rarely dive.
Hedge or thicket
Leaf floating on water
Long grass beside mown grass
Path worn across the grass
Prickly plantA thistle, a bramble, a holly leaf. Eyes only.
Purple or blue wildflower
Reflection in still water
Ripples on a pond
Small burrow or molehillA hole or a heap of fresh earth. Look, and leave it unpoked.
Squirrel up a tree
Tall grass gone to seed
Tree in blossom or in fruit
Tree standing alone
Trickle of running water
Waterbird that is not a duckA goose, a swan, a heron, a coot: anything else that lives on the water.
White wildflower
Yellow wildflower
Beach and shore 26
Barnacles on a rockBarnacles are crustaceans, related to crabs and lobsters. Once settled, they are cemented in place for life.
Bird bobbing on the water
Bird running from the waves
Bird tracks in wet sand
Crab, or an empty crab shellMany crabs run fast sideways, though others walk forwards.
Driftwood log or branchWood washed onto a shore by winds, tides or waves. On the beach it gives shelter to birds, plants and other species.
Dune grassMarram grass, also called beachgrass, grows on the front line of dunes along the coast. Its creeping underground stems help hold the sand in place. Spot it from the path.
Feather at the tide lineLeave it where it lies. In the United States a federal law protects the feathers, eggs and nests of nearly 1,100 kinds of bird.
Foam left by a wave
Gull on the sand
Limpet on a rockA sea snail with a cone-shaped shell that clings to rock with a strong, muscular foot. Look, do not pry.
Mussel or oyster shell
Pebble with a stripe or ring
Ripples in the sand
Sea glassBroken glass tumbled by salt water until it turns smooth and frosted. That takes 20 to 40 years, and sometimes far longer.
Sea snail on a wet rock
Seaweed on the sandSeaweed is marine algae, and it comes in red, brown and green kinds.
Shell the size of a fingernail
Shell with a neat round holeOne maker of such holes is the moon snail, a predator that bores through the shells of other mollusks and leaves a countersunk edge.
Shell with both halves joinedA bivalve shell is two valves joined at a hinge. The shells of dead bivalves usually wash up as separate halves, which makes a joined pair the harder find.
Shell with growth linesA bivalve shell grows by adding to its open edge, which leaves lines that follow the rim.
Small holes in the wet sand
Spiral shell
Stone with a hole through it
Tide line of seaweedThe strip of kelp, seagrass and driftwood left along the upper beach at high tide is called the wrack line. It gives food and shelter to shore animals.
Tide poolA shallow pool of seawater on a rocky shore, often there only at low tide. Wet rock is slippery and the tide comes back: go with an adult and keep an eye on the sea.
Sky, sounds and signs 26
A good smell on the breeze
A heart shape in nature
A silent minute, all togetherStand still, close your eyes and count the sounds. Compare lists afterward.
A spiral in nature
Big bird soaring in circles
Bird carrying something
Bird nest up highLook from a distance and move on. The United States law that protects migratory birds covers their nests and eggs too.
Bird you hear but cannot see
Birds flying in a group
Buzz of an insect
Cloud with a flat baseCumulus clouds have flat bases and look puffy or cotton-like. The name is Latin for heap or pile.
Fluffy seed drifting past
Leaf with bite marks
Paw or hoof print
Piece of litter carried outThe one thing on the card to take home. An adult decides what is safe to pick up.
Snail or slug
Something red that grew there
Something rough to the touchBark, rock or dry sand. Touch only what is not alive.
Something smooth to the touchA pebble, a worn root, a bare log.