It’s been another month of spending time inside recovering from my hip replacement surgery. There’s been a lot of time gazing out the window at the view and my birdfeeders. In addition, I’ve done quite a bit of reading about my favorite nature topics. There’s just so much to learn!
We spotted the first of our elk herd a week or so ago but haven’t seen them since. It’s always just at daybreak when they move behind our fence so we have to be up and watching or we miss them.
Plus we have been watching and waiting for our beaver to make his appearance. It all started with my husband noticing a tree down by the river that had been gnawed almost the whole way through. We set up our critter cam to see if we could capture the beaver at work but we missed it! We didn’t have the camera in place on the night they finished off the tree.
In the meantime, we’ve been trying to get a video of the beaver taking the limbs off the tree but so far we’re unsuccessful. We won’t be giving up!
Here are my pages from the last month for your inspiration.
This wildflower is a common sight on our walks to the river and in our yard too. We have a bit in our rock garden and some even growing in our lawn.
We tried to transplant a few of the silverweed plants to our new landscaping berm and next year we’ll see if they moved successfully.
I converted an unused page in my Nature Observer journal to record our critter cam results.
Note the link above is my amazon.com affiliate link.
One of the most common birds in our birdfeeders is the chickadee. I realized we live in an area that has both the black-capped chickadee and the mountain chickadee. As I worked on my bird sketching skills, I created a page with a few facts and field notes for the two species.
I find that sketching subjects and writing a few pertinent facts down in my journal helps me to remember it better.
We started the new season of Project Feederwatch! I love this activity and look forward to each week’s counting days. If you aren’t familiar with the project, you count birds that come to your feeders for two days in a row basically once a week. You can watch the feeder for just a few minutes or as long as you have available. This super easy citizen science project helped me gain confidence in recognizing all the birds that come to our feeders by taking it one bird at a time. I highly recommend this for bird loving families with a birdfeeder in your yard!
In addition to my regular nature journal, I work daily in my Nature Observer journal. This is the perfect way to note all the simple every day thoughts and observations which over time give a fuller picture of your local habitat.
Don’t forget that I’m sharing a nature journal page each week on my Instagram account if you want to see the pages as they unfold. Follow me here: Instagram – outdoorhourchallenge. And, if you want to create a page and share it on your Instagram for me to see, use the hashtag #OHCnaturejournal.