Author: Barb

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Birds Up Close

One thing that frustrates this bird lover is that it is nearly impossible to get up close to live birds in the wild. So when the opportunity presents itself to get a really good look, even at a zoo or museum…I grab it. We were able to observe quite a few beautiful birds at the Living Desert Museum. If you live in California or even in Nevada, you might want to check this museum out and include it on your next roadtrip.

This Burrowing owl was so gorgeous and he impressed me very much with his wide eyes and his colorful pattern on his wings and body.

They had a hummingbird and butterfly aviary that I could have spent all day wandering around. We spotted this hummer on the littlest nest around. Click the photo to see the texture of his feathers. I will post photos of some of the butterflies soon.

I am amazed at the way the birds are so different from each other. They may all have feathers, wings, and legs but the variety of how those pieces are put together is an amazing testimony to our Creator.

Most of the birds at this museum are not able to be released into the wild. Some have lost a leg or a wing and the owl in the first photo of this entry is blind. This bird is a kind of heron and I forgot to write down his exact name but he was so pretty…and sleepy. 🙂

I encourage you to take advantage of any opportunity that comes along for nature study. I was surprised to see that this particular museum had a badger exhibit so we were able to observe a real live badger as part of our Outdoor Hour Challenge…..more on that in another post.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/02/outdoor-hour-challenge-owl-study.html

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Outdoor Hour Challenge #50 Mammals-Skunk and Badger

Outdoor Hour Challenge
#50 Skunk and Badger

This week there are some great videos to share with your children to capture their interest.

PBS Nature Skunk
This video series is excellent and we learned more than we ever wanted to know about skunks. You must watch this for yourself even if you don’t watch it with your children.

Here is a video about badgers.

Wow! Those critters can dig!

1. Read pages 245-247 in the Handbook of Nature Study.
Resources for the skunk
Resource for badger

2. Supplemental reading in The Burgess Animal Book for Children: Read Stories 22-23. Use the illustrations on pages 135 and 110 to prompt a narration your child’s narration if needed.


3. This week during your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time, keeping an eye out for signs of mammals as you walk. In our area we many times will smell a skunk but not see him. If you have the opportunity over the next few weeks, point out the fragrance of a skunk to your children.

  • Another idea this week is to carry a small pouch or bag to collect any nature items you find while you are outdoors.
  • Start or add to a nature collection. (see challenge 6)
  • Did you find any animal tracks this week? Take photos or make a mental note of how they looked for further research.

4. After your walk, take a few minutes to discuss anything your child found interesting during their outdoor time. If they collected items in a bag, pull those objects out and take a closer look with your magnifying lens. Use a Mammal notebook page to record what you learned about skunks and badgers this week. Complete the Seasonal Weather Study notebook page and file it in with your autumn observations. You could talk about the differences between what you observed in autumn and those things you recorded this time. How is the scene you drew this week different from the autumn scene? How are the temperatures different? Is there a difference in the number of hours of daylight?

Additional resources for this challenge:

ns_ultimate

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Desert Walking Again….Just a Glimpse

I can always tell when I am ready for a road trip. It is a very good thing that we live in a place in the world that with some driving we can totally change our environment. From snow to the desert sunshine…I feel so much better.


The desert is getting really close to bursting out in blossoms. This is a cholla cactus putting out its buds.

Here is what the cactus looks like as we hike along in the desert.


I added this photo for those that know how much my husband is into alternative energy. He was amazed at the wind turbines out here in the desert.

A little rock climbing went on. Well, maybe A LOT of rock climbing. How about this natural arch?


Here is one critter that we saw while we were out hiking in the desert…he sat still for a very long time while I took a few photos. If you click on the photo you should be able to see his blue spots.


My husband spotted the desert cottontails in this area of the trail. Very, very cute little mammals to observe!

One last photo….here is the star of our desert hike. The Joshua tree is a unique plant that we are just now starting to get to know.

Winter will soon change to spring. Sigh.

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More Snow Experiments: Winter Wednesday

This has been one snowy week for our family. We woke up to snow on two mornings and it was gloriously beautiful.

The birds showed up for the Great Backyard Bird Count even with the snow and it was very entertaining to watch the different techniques for getting to the seed. The Spotted towhee was a master at scratching a hole in the snow and finding the seed underneath. The juncos just waited until the towhee flew away and then they took over.

The bulbs seemed happy to just hang out with the white stuff.

We took numerous opportunities to go out and measure the snow depth. We never got over three inches at any one time but it would snow, melt, and then snow again so I think our total count is somewhere about 8 inches for the season. That is actually a lot of snow for our area and we have enjoyed it thoroughly along with the Winter Wednesday activities. (Teenagers think that they can go outside wearing sandals in the snow….and t-shirts. Brrrrrrrr.)

We enjoyed a few snow walks this week and this particular one was very beautiful even if the trees kept dumping snow on our heads as it melted and fell to the ground.

There were quite a few trees and tree branches across the trail.

This is the first time we have seen water running over this waterfall along the trail. We were excited to see this on the day after the big snowstorm. The sound was the perfect little waterfall sound.

Hope you are enjoying your Winter Wednesday activities as much as we are.

Winter Wednesday Button

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Announcing the Outdoor Hour Challenge eBook!


We are very excited to announce that our first Outdoor Hour Challenge eBook is ready for purchase. We have finished writing and polishing the first ten challenges into a great resource for families.

Here is an excerpt from the introductory pages:
It is a quiet revolution going on in families all over the country. Children are spending more time outdoors with their families as they explore their own backyards and neighborhoods. The Outdoor Hour Challenges have provided the needed push for more people to get outside and spend just a few minutes each week learning about the plants and animals they encounter as they venture out their own back doors.

The Outdoor Hour Challenges have become a favorite activity among homeschoolers and now with the ease of having the first ten challenges gathered into one convenient eBook, more families can enjoy the benefits of nature study each week with their children. The challenges encourage each family to spend fifteen to twenty minutes each week focusing on nature study close to home in their own backyards, neighborhoods, or local parks. No fancy equipment is necessary and the challenges help families make the small steps needed to get started. Families from all over the world are participating and learning just how many benefits there are to sharing in nature study.

If you haven’t started with the challenges yet or you would like to have the very first ten challenges in one easy to use eBook format, you can now purchase them along with some exciting new features.

Here is what you get with the purchase of this eBook.

  • The first ten Outdoor Hour Challenges simply explained and illustrated.
  • Examples from my own family that I have shared on the blog, grouped with the appropriate challenge.
  • Links to the Challenges on the Handbook of Nature Study Blog.
  • A notebook page specifically designed for each challenge as well as twelve more generic pages to use with any nature study.
  • Lots of photos and examples from our nature journals.
  • Additional materials and resources in the Appendix.
  • Links to various types of nature study information that will help you complete the challenges.
  • Suggestions for field guides to use with beginners.
  • Tips and ideas from the Handbook of Nature Study blog.
  • You can see and download a sample challenge and notebook pages: OHC Getting Started Ebook Sample.


Please note that the challenges in the eBook are exactly the same challenges that are offered here on the blog.

 

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Rabbit Tracks! Mystery Solved!

Rabbit Tracks in the Snow

Both Jennifer and Theresa suggested that the mysterious fur on our trail could be from a rabbit. I thought they were onto something because the fur was so soft, just like a rabbit’s fur.

We were able to hike the trail on Friday after the big snowfall and we were amazed to see that the trail had many spots that you could clearly see rabbit tracks.

I think our mystery is solved.

Thanks for all the ideas and help in figuring out our mystery fur.

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Great Backyard Bird Count Starts Today!

great backyard bird coutn
Don’t forget to check out the Great Backyard Bird Count because it starts today!

So far we have:

  • 37 Dark-eyed juncos
  • 4 White-crowned sparrows
  • 4 House sparrows
  • 3 House finches

This is a pretty unusual day for us since we woke up to two inches of snow and it is still coming down. The birds are all hunkered down somewhere out of the snow I am sure.

We have officially called it a “snow day” from school so we can do some fun stuff…..like watch birds and paint some wintery trees.

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Our Winter Wednesday Snow Experiments

With the latest round of snow that we had we were able to conduct our two snow experiments from the Winter Wednesday – Snow activities from chapter two of Discover Nature in Winter.


The first experiment was to gather snow and then let it melt to see how much water was actually present in the snow.


Here are two cups of packed snow.


Just under a cup of melted water resulted from the two cups of packed snow.

The next activity was to put out a clean jar in a snowstorm to gather snow. You then bring the snow in and let it melt. You pour the resulting water through a coffee filter and funnel to collect any particles that are within the snow.

We looked at our coffee filter and we could see a few black particles with the naked eye. We then put some of the water on a slide and looked at it under the microscope. I tried to get a photo of what we saw but you will have to use your imagination.


The arrow is pointing at a green splotch and then there was another green thread-like object at the bottom of the lighted area. This was a brand new slide with a brand new slide cover…..we were surprised and amazed.

I left the melted snow and microscope out all morning and just about everyone in the family tried their hand at viewing the snow up close.


Here are some dog and cat tracks in the snow on our back deck this morning. I love the way they look like they were dancing together. 🙂

I am loving our winter nature study this year. With the Winter Wednesday activities and the Discover Nature in Winter book, we have so many fresh ideas to learn from.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/01/winter-wednesday-snow.html

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Beavers, Fur, and Rocks: Our Family’s Outdoor Hour Challenge

This week we took time to review a little bit about beavers since we regularly visit an area where we see evidence of them. If you read my blog regularly, you have seen photos of the beaver lodges and the trees gnawed on by beavers.


My son really enjoyed watching the YouTube videos on beavers and we read the section in the Handbook on muskrats.

Our outdoor time this week was spent exploring an area off the trail we normally take. It led us to what we are now calling Fern Gully. This area is found by following what we think is a deer trail down off the main trail and into a steep little gully. We have heard water running in this area before and we presume that when it rains hard enough there is water running down the rocks. We will test our theory the next chance we get.

Here is another photo looking the other way down the gully.

There are lots of blackberry vines. We are interested to see how this area looks in the summertime. We imagine it being a cool place to sit in the shade. It should be interesting to see how the area changes as the seasons change.

We found more fur on the side of the trail…a lot this time.

We still are puzzled by the fur mystery. I looked at it very closely and it is really fluffy and very soft. It is white…with a slight yellowish color to it. There is no blood or tracks or other signs of struggle. I have no idea where it came from but this is the third spot on the mile and a half trail that we have seen this fur. Last week we began to wonder if it was a dog’s fur but it just doesn’t feel like any dog fur that I have felt before. Someone suggested in a comment that it could be sheep’s wool but it is no way the texture of wool and there are definitely no sheep in this area. Hmmmm…still wondering.


We came across an area that has these wonderful quartz rocks. Really, really pretty.

Here is the backside.

I am so interested in studying rocks but I am nervous about being overwhelmed with trying to identify them. Any suggestions?

Well, that wraps up this post for our Outdoor Hour Challenge this week. We had some adventures and some good questions this week. Last night we had two inches of snow so we were able to complete our Winter Wednesday snow activities from a few weeks ago. I was glad that we had planned ahead of time and had the experiments in our mind as it began to snow. I will post those results soon.

 

Quartz samples

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Evergreens: Not All are Pine Trees


The moon from last week….

So here is my biggest revelation of the week: Not all evergreens that I see in the winter are pines….some are firs. 🙂 Both pines and firs are conifers (cone-bearing) but you can tell them apart by looking at the way the needles grow. Pines have bundles of needles and firs don’t.

That is my very unscientific description and understanding. It is good enough for me right now to recognize that I shouldn’t call all evergreens “pine trees” or even all cone-bearing trees “pine trees”. Sometimes it takes me a long time to catch on to things.

We noticed that there were some branches strewn across our hiking trail this week. Here is the first one.

We think it is White Fir.

Here is the second one that we observed on the trail. There was quite a bit of it in small branches all over one section of the trail.

We think this one is the Douglas Fir.

On another note, we have some fun stuff going on at our nature shelf.

We were surprised this morning to observe that the forsythia branches and the twig from our tree study have all started to show signs of blossoming. We brought them inside last week to “force” them to grow earlier than they would outdoors. If you want to try it, here are some instructions:
Forcing Forsythia (or other woody plants like p. willows)

Here is the first of the forsythia blooms.

Here is an attempt to take a photo of the complete branch showing the blossoms that are bursting out this morning in the morning sunshine.

Here is the sweet gum twig.

Isn’t that the coolest thing ever? How amazing and beautiful this twig is as it starts to bud out with the leaves…I assume these will be the leaves. I will keep you posted.

What a great week it is shaping up to be for nature study! These sorts of impromptu studies are the best. We had the field guides out and the magnifying lens at hand to observe the details. We are now deciding that we want to make a bigger space for all our nature collections. I will share what we come up with in the weeks to come.