We are so ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count and this month we thought we would join Heather over on her blog Kingdom Arrows for a new bird meme.
We live at about 2000 feet in elevation, in North-Central California, foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
Our yard has pine and oak trees as the natural habitat, supplemented with a variety of bird attracting features like sheltering bushes near feeders, birdbaths at both ends of the yard, and seed bearing plants.
Weather this month has been unusually warm, very little rain, and absolutely no snow.
Here is our list for our yard– I have starred the most common birds at our feeders:
Dark-eyed juncos***
House sparrows***
Spotted towhees
California towhees
Western scrub jays***
White-breasted nuthatches***
Mourning doves
Lesser goldfinches***
Downy woodpeckers
Nuttall’s woodpeckers
American crows
Oak titmouse***
House finches***
Purple finches***
White-crowned sparrows***
Hummingbird—not sure of identification. We are thinking it was migratory.
Northern mockingbird
In our travels-
Mallard ducks
Common mergansers
Red-tail hawks
Cooper’s hawk
Red-breasted nuthatches
Steller’s jays
Red-winged blackbirds
Rock pigeons
Western bluebirds
We have been out looking for bald eagles but so far we have not scored a sighting. Our friend did last week so we are not going to give up!
Jamie joins the carnival this edition with their Cattails in Winter entry. What a treat to have an entry from their family because she always takes such beautiful photos!
Amy and her children share their Winter Cattail Entry. She writes, “It was a bit snowy and chilly this morning, but that did not hinder us from diving right into today’s winter challenge.” I love this attitude!
Heather submitted their family’s Winter Study of Cattails. They are really excited about starting this year-long study….great job finding some cattails to observe even in the snow.
World of Color
Tricia contributes this entry for the carnival: Winter World of Color. I love the blue berries!
Monica from Discover Their Gifts writes about their Winter Wednesday Color Walk. She has a clever idea to add to the color activity and don’t miss their journal entry.
Karen and her children write about their Winter Wednesday Color Walk. Even thought she says they didn’t find many colors, I think they had a great time trying!
Angie from Petra School (Pebblekeeper) shares their family’s Winter Color Scavenger Hunt. If you want some winter color, check out their dazzling entry.
Makita shares their Winter Nature Scavenger Hunt with carnival readers. You may be able to adapt her idea to your local area.
Winter Night Sky
Amy from The Teachable Heart writes about their Winter Night Sky and she includes ten things her children found interesting. If you have preschoolers, Amy always shares some great ideas for adapting the challenges to younger children.
Angie from Petra School shares their Winter Wednesday January Recap post with many of their activities. I want you to make sure to see her sky photos and see how she took some images through her telescope. Great entry Angie.
Nicole submits a beautiful entry, God was in the mood to brag. I am glad her eyes were open to the opportunity!
Winter Tree and Tree Silhouettes
Angie in GA shares their Tree Silhouettes entry for the carnival. Her boys found some extra treasures to observe during their hike.
DorinaLouise from Out Side Blue shares their very special birch tree study as part of this challenge. Please note that they live in a big city and they are finding opportunities for nature study.
Jessy from Our Side of the Mountain submits their Winter Wednesday-Conifers entry for you all to read. They did an excellent study and she shares some great resources that might help you in your pine tree studies.
Heather shares on her blog Kingdom Arrows about their Winter Tree Study. They picked one of my favorite trees to start their year-long tree study.
Winter Snow
Lorus and her kids completed the snow observations and they share their great photos and story on Because of Our Children.
Amy from The Teachable Heart shows their family’s experiences with Winter Snow . Another wonderful, resourceful entry from their family.
Amy and her family were able to take a snow day walk and she shares their wonderful experiences on her blog Hope is the Word. Here girls saw lots of colors too!
More Georgia snow in Angie’s entry: Outdoor Hour Nature Close to Home: Snow. Wonderful snow activity images and I think they had fun and learned something too!
Other Challenges
Quinn’s Family has an on-going study of Moths. They share their entry, Outdoor Hour Moths Part 2. From the expressions on her children’s faces, I think they are really enjoying their study!
Outdoor Hour Challenge #5 Focus Study – Nicole from Journey to Excellence shares one of their series of entries on their focus area of birds. I linked to their owl study and if you are looking for some ideas for your own bird study, I recommend that you take a look.
Bethany from Little Homeschool Blessings submitted their delightful Winter Squirrel Study. She includes a some extra resources and ideas.
That completes this edition of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. I wanted to mention that if you would like to be on the OHC Blog Carnival email reminder list, I will add your name if you send me an email to let me know you wish to be reminded near the end of the month to send in your carnival submissions. I have been keeping a running list of those that are participating but if you would like me to add your name, just send an email to harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com.
Thank you to all who participated in the challenges in January and a special thank you to those that then sent in entries for the carnival.
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
~Henry David Thoreau
By now you are more than likely tired of seeing my snowshoe photos but since the season is full of opportunities to hike out there in the snowy goodness, I will continue to share some of the best shots and stories from our wanderings.
This trip was a sisters trip and my big sis and I spent part of our weekend out in the sunshine hiking/wandering, taking photos, talking, sharing aches and pains, and nourishing our love of beautiful landscapes. We heard Steller’s jays and nuthatches as we “tramped” through the woods.The creek sounds were always in the background and every now and then the quack of a mallard was heard over the crunching of our shoes.
This particular place is known for being a bear and eagle habitat. Although I have seen bears here in the summer and fall, I have never seen an actual bear or signs of bear in the winter. There are plenty of other animal tracks around but never any bear tracks. My sister was still a little uneasy but we did not see a bear on this trip, thank goodness, or she would have never let me forget about it.
There has been no fresh snow in awhile but there were places where we really did need the snowshoes. The weather was warm and I ended up just with a fleece jacket, no gloves, and my light knit hat. My sister was trying out a new set of snowshoes which were much smaller and lighter than mine. She said they were very easy to get used to and we felt good about being out for a long walk….not totally by ourselves in the woods but still alone enough to feel peaceful and refreshed.
We wandered through the woods and only once did we need to take our snowshoes off and jump across the creek. Yes, I said jump. I didn’t feel very graceful as I made the leap across into the snowbank but there was no one else around to see me….
The aspens make such a visual treat with their beautiful trunks.
Yes, the limbs of the bare bushes are that pinky-red in real life. Amazing color along the creek for a winter scene. I was so surprised that my point and shoot was able to capture the exact look of this winter creek.
Does it get any better than this? With a little effort my sister and I made it out to the end of the creek where it spills into the lake. The snow had all melted on this side of the water and we took off our snowshoes and stood in awe of the mountains, the snow, the reflections, the sky, the peacefulness of this place. I felt like I was in some beautiful outdoor cathedral and I sent my thanks to our Grand Creator for the gift of this afternoon.
There is my sister taking some photos of her own. We share a love for the outdoors and photography and she is an amazing nature photographer. All too soon we realized the day was coming to a close and we needed to make the hike back to the car. We were tired but it was a good kind of tired.
I hope to get up to the snow at least one more time, probably with my boys if we can fit in the time.
I am not the only one that has snowshoes. Don’t miss reading another mom’s experience with her snowshoes…it will warm your heart: Pink Snowshoes by Richelle at Educating Mother.
These two challenges can easily be combined into one outdoor excursion. Both challenges can also be done from the comfort of your own window if it is bitterly cold outdoors. Observations can be made and then recorded in your nature journal or if you have the ebooks you can record your findings on the accompanying notebook pages.
Snowshoe Tracks with Aspen Silhouettes
Even if you don’t do anything else this week, try to get outside for some fresh air and a good walk with your children.
We have been out a few nights in the past week to gaze at stars even if it was for just a minute or two. The moon was very bright and we even saw it early in the morning a couple of times, peeking out from between the pines on the horizon. I think the moon impressed us more than the stars. We have been focusing on stars all this school year so I just went with what the boys were interested in learning about. The next full moon is on February 18, 2011 and is know as the Full Snow Moon.
I ordered a new book for them because of their interest in learning more about the Apollo landings on the moon and the Apollo program in general. I know it doesn’t look like a very deep book but it gets builds their interest and helps them to know what they can research more on their own. It is another one of those books that I will keep on the coffee table for a few months and let them browse it at their leisure.
The other interesting subject that came our way was a bat! We were out at sunset and here was a bat flying and swooping around our backyard. We were surprised to see him but it was fun to watch as he flew around and around putting on an acrobatic show.
Purple Sunrise…Looking West
My son pointed out this purple sunrise sky…this is facing west so the sunrise is behind us. It is the same spot that the very top photo was taken at sunset. I had a hard time getting the color right and had to take about twenty images on different settings to get it to come out. It was really this purple.
If you are looking for a journal to use over long periods of time for star gazing (or moon gazing), we found a perfect one that my son has been using all year.
It is called Stargazing Journal and it has pre-printed pages for you to record each night time session you have. There is even a place on the page for a sketch of your observations. I like that it is hardbound and has an elastic closure.
I have really enjoyed reading other family’s star entries and I encourage you all to give it a try. It doesn’t even need to be a long session but just calling attention to the winter sky’s beauty is even enough if that is all you can fit in. Do a sunset or a sunrise study if you can manage that for this challenge. I guarantee if you put in the effort, you will be rewarded.
Have a great week and I will post up the next challenge tomorrow.
Don’t forget to submit your January Outdoor Hour Challenge and Winter Wednesday entries to the OHC Blog Carnival. The deadline is this coming Monday, January 31st.
My love of hiking and really seeing our surroundings has rubbed off on my dear husband. This is his image from his early morning hike last week. He many times hikes at sunrise, usually with a buddy. We have had lots of fog and this particular morning the fog was sitting just over the river in the winding river canyon.
What a great gift from him to share his view! Believe it or not, the road you see in the photo is the “highway” to his “office” up in the woods. Don’t you envy his commute?
“I never saw a discontented tree.They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!” ~John Muir
Trees in winter are amazing. As much as I like the leafy greenness of spring and the blazing colors of autumn, a winter tree with its bare branches showing is so appealing to look at…almost like a sculpture.
Our local area has been plagued with fog for the last week and it makes me so grateful that we live just high enough in elevation to be above the fog line. Sunday afternoon we decided to venture the trail to the river and as we started out we could see the fog sitting low in the distance. It is about a mile and a half walk from the parking lot to the river along this winding ranch road and where the fog is lies the river.
Along the trail are lots of trees and rocks. My son and I both really liked the way these particular rocks were stacked and painted with lichens and moss. The oak tree on the left seems to be holding them all up but in fact, I think the rocks are sheltering the oak.
The rest of the hike was refreshing because it is a gentle downhill slope to the river. The sun was bright and as we approached the river we could hear it roaring! I scrambled up onto the rocks for a closer look at how wide and deep the water is this time of the year.
That is pure snow melt….freezing cold and crystal clear.
The fog had lifted and now the skies over the river were blue and cheerful. We sat for a long time and watched the water flow by. As long as you were in the sunshine it was warm.
Not all of us hiked on this day. Mr. A brought his mountain bike and he took the high trail up on the ridge…somewhere up on the top of that hill. He was a muddy mess when we got back up to the car but he had enjoyed the time alone on the bike.
I’m sure we will travel this trail a few more times this spring and with each trek we will see the progression of grasses and wildflowers. For now we were content with the trees, the sky, and the refreshing goodness of a good hike down a familiar trail.
“After the polar constellations are learned, we are then ready for further study in the still earlier evenings of winter, when the clear atmosphere makes the stars seem more alive, more sparkling, and more beautiful than at any other period of the year.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 823
We have been enjoying the full moon and the brilliant stars just about every night this week. We also were observing the moon this morning when it was still up over the tree tops first thing….amazing. We tried to capture our moon with the camera but it is pretty tricky. This is the perfect winter study for our family and I hope you get to give it a try too.
Please feel free to complete one or both of the challenges as you have the opportunity. We would all enjoy seeing your entries and even if it is at a later date, please come back to this entry and add your link. I am listing all the entries in this series on the sidebar of my blog for you to add to as you have time. You are never “late” and you can add links whenever you have the chance.
Don’t forget to check in with the additional webpages for these sets of challenges:
Are you ready for some more bird photos? I have been busy a little bit each day taking advantage of the dry weather to keep track of the backyard birds that visit.
First up in my son’s camera is theDowny Woodpecker.He set up the camera on a tripod and we all watched until we saw the woodpecker visit the suet feeder. He was able to snap a few good shots as the bird ate a little lunch. This is a large and colorful bird that we always look forward to seeing in our backyard. Here is a LINK to what he sounds like.
If you have read my blog with any frequency you know that we have an abundance of Western Scrub Jays in our backyard, even a nesting pair. They always seem to know when I put out their favorite treats….peanuts and walnuts.
We have a pair of White-breasted nuthatches that come every day to our backyard. They are so much fun to watch as they climb up and down the trunks of trees, occasionally stopping to look for insects in the bark.
Here is a LINK to a video showing how they climb.
Oops! That is certainly not a bird! This fox squirrel is one of three that are daily in our birdfeeders. In fact, as I look out my window at this very moment there is one in the feeder that I can see. I have given up trying to keep them out of the feeders and I added one squirrel-proof feeder to another area just so the birds will still have a place to eat when the squirrels are in town.
I don’t think I have shared the link to a new bird related page that I wrote over on Squidoo. Hop over and maybe you will find some fresh ideas for your yard.
Tomorrow I will be posting the third challenges in the Winter and Winter Wednesday series. Don’t forget to link up your entries for the first two challenges since you are never late!
We started our birch tree year-long study back in October. (You can read it HERE.) I remember saying to one of the boys that soon the leaves would all be gone and we would be able to see the shape of the tree’s trunk and branches better. Well, time has flown by and here we are standing in the backyard looking at just those very things.
Words that are going in our nature journals: bare, thin, flexible, drooping, catkins, white.
This tree is so different in shape than our other year-long tree studies done with the silver maple and the tulip poplar. The bark on the trunk is different and the seeds are totally different. I anticipate that we are going to learn quite a bit about trees just taking a few minutes each season to observe this tree.
We wanted to take a closer look at the catkins from the tree so we brought a few inside to the table. I bumped one of the catkins and the seeds went everywhere. You can see the partial catkin in the photo above and how the seeds are attached to make it look somewhat like a little dangling cone but it is not really like a cone at all. It is a well organized bunch of winged seeds that are in the shape of a cone. We have seen finches land on the catkins and hang upside down as they nibble their treat.
After much manipulation of lights and magnifying lenses, my son and I were able to capture the seed in an image for you. Truly amazing!
Mr. B sketched the seed for me in my journal and I added color and the captions after we did the research. So much to learn about seeds and how they are part of the life cycle of a tree. I know in my head what seeds are but when you stop to think about the miracle of a complete tree growing from this one small hard to see with the naked eye structure…well, it causes me to sit and be amazed at our wonderful Creator. It is nothing short of a miracle.
It actually reminds me of this quote that I ran across and wrote down to save.
“Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.”
Blaise Pascal
My Encouragement to You
If you haven’t had a chance to start, begin now during the winter. Charlotte Mason in her writings suggests choosing trees in winter to observe and compare. She says to wait until spring to identify the trees when the leaves and blossoms appear.
“Children should be made early intimate with the trees, too; should pick out half a dozen trees, oak, elm, ash, beech, in their winter nakedness, and take these to be their year-long friends. In the winter, they will observe the light tresses of the birch, the knotted arms of the oak, the sturdy growth of the sycamore. They may wait to learn the names of the trees until the leaves come.”
There are some simple ideas outlined in Winter Series Challenge #2 or you can just pick a tree and observe, perhaps taking a photo or making a simple journal entry. Don’t hesitate to jump in now!
