CHARLESTOWN — “White pines have five needles in a bundle.

“Pitch pines have three needles in a bundle.”

Janis Nepshinsky leads a class of middle school students from Providence down a path behind the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Kettle Pond Visitor Center last Wednesday and provides an introduction to every bush and tree along the way.

Winged sumacs. Ferns. White oak. Black oak. Blueberry. A gray birch, whose leaves look like the face of an elephant.

Before long, she takes the students from the Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program to a vernal pool, a small pond of dark water, and shows them how to collect samples with their nets. In seconds, they hit the jackpot.

Adventures at Hand:
A Summer Series

With gas prices so high, we all have less money to splurge on vacation. Many Rhode Islanders are choosing to stay closer to home this summer, opting for day trips and local adventures. With this series, The Journal will offer up some nearby activities and outings. Some may be old favorites while others perhaps, you've never tried.

Your Turn: What are three of your can't-miss R.I. summer favorites?

Rhode Trip: Share photos of your travels with us

Summer photos: Share yours, see others

Fishing photos: Upload yours, view all

More of this series . . .

One after another they holler as they pull out frogs, salamanders, newts and dragonfly nymphs. One student carefully cups a good sized bullfrog in his hands.

They study each and carefully return them to the water.

Some 3,000 acres of the surrounding woods and fields are owned by the Fish & Wildlife Service, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the State of Rhode Island. And the only people here besides the students were a few small family groups hiking.

If you are looking for some no-cost outdoor activities and don’t like crowds, you might visit one of the five national wildlife refuges along the Rhode Island shoreline this summer.

Some people have criticized the refuges because they led to the closure of popular beaches to protect young piping plovers. Some may think of them as little more than destinations for bird watchers.

But if you went out under the gray skies last Wednesday, you would have found:

•Extensive exhibits, videos and a gift shop at the Kettle Pond Visitor Center in Charlestown, along with the 3,000 acres out back. South of Route 1, you could hike or fish at the Ninigret refuge.

•Dozens of mute swans floating on the water at the Trustom Pond refuge, in South Kingtown, with cormorants drying on nearby rocks and a family of black ducks paddling in tight formation. Some summers more than 200 swans gather on the pond while their feathers molt. There were only a few cars in the parking lot and just one person on the trail to the pond.

•Three big osprey looking down from a nest across from the kayak launching site alongside Route 1A in Narragansett at the John H. Chafee National Wildlife Refuge at Pettaquamscutt Cove. There is exactly one car parked nearby. Egrets, ducks and cormorants complete the scene as the tide gently flowed in.

•Shorelines with more birds than people at the Block Island refuge and the Sachuest Point refuge in Middletown.

Nepshinsky, visitor services manager for the refuges, explains why she provides so much energy while giving tours to school groups.

“Every time I go out there I am in awe,” she says.

She cautions that Trustom and the Chafee kayak launch site are often much busier on weekend mornings.

Sachuest Point is the busiest of the five refuges. Some 203,119 people visited there last year. Trustom was second, with 108,360, followed by Ninigret with 99,001, Chafee with 26,529 and Block Island with 24,800.

More than 38,000 people stopped at the Sachuest Point Visitor Center and nearly 20,000 stopped at Kettle Pond.

“The word is spreading,” says Nepshinsky. “But at the same time we’re usually not mobbed. We have enough acreage so I never feel like were overcrowded.”

The refuges have different backgrounds and characteristics.

Much of the 440 acres in Ninigret were donated former Navy property. A runway remains and there are more than nine miles of paved and unpaved trails. It abuts Ninigret Pond, the state’s largest coastal pond. Work is under way to build a kayak launch site there.

Trustom covers 787 acres that include a 160-acre pond. Much of the land was donated in 1974 by Ann Kenyon Morse. It’s a hot spot for bird watchers.

The Chafee refuge is being assembled along the banks of the Narrow River. The state recently sold it 73 acres of saltmarsh and woods behind the Stedman Center on Route 1 for $1.18 million. Its kayak launch provides access to the river and nearby Narragansett Bay.

Sachuest, now totaling 242 acres, also is former military property. It was once an island separated from the mainland by a marsh. In World War II it was used as a rifle range and communications center. The Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the Town of Middletown donated land that makes up the refuge. Its visitor center was recently renovated.

Block Island’s refuge, obviously, is the most remote. It comprises about 46 acres in separate parcels along the island’s northwest shoreline, including the island’s North Light, which is open to the public.

The late Sen. John H. Chafee was a huge supporter of the refuges. He sponsored appropriations year after year that allowed the Fish & Wildlife Service to buy land and expand the refuges.

In 1999, the Pettaquamscutt Cove National Wildlife Refuge was renamed after the senator.

Check refuge Web site for places and times of hikes, talks and other activities hosted by the refuges this summer.

R.I. National Wildlife Refuge Complex

Locations: Five places along south coast.

Costs: Usually no fees.

What to bring: Water, insect repellent, sun screen.

Advice for beginners: Check in at visitor centers for trail advice.

What’s the Web site: www.fws.gov/northeast/ri.htm

For the Web site of the volunteer group, Friends of National Wildlife Refuges of Rhode Island, go to friendsnwr-ri.org/home.htm

plord@projo.com