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Posted on November 2, 2009 by Barb — 11 Comments

Squirrel Study: Sad Story of Our Walnuts

We have a beautiful walnut tree in our backyard and it has always given us an abundance of nuts each autumn. The photo shown here is from a few years ago and shows part of our walnut harvest. Around this time of year, we are usually gathering oodles of nuts to dry and crack to eat and save for our baking.

Not this year.

Grey squirrels came and ate every last nut in our crop. Climbing into the tree, they would pick the nuts wrapped in their green outer coats, strip the casings off, and then proceed to crack the shells to get to the meat.

Piles and piles of shells and green casings dropped to the ground, littering the sidewalk and garden below. I thought surely they couldn’t eat them all, but they did.

I have mixed feelings about the whole situation. On one hand, I love having the furry little guys in my yard and away from my birdfeeders. On the other hand, I would have liked to have had a few nuts in my pantry for cookies and muffins and salads. This autumn will be known as the year with no nuts.

Our front yard also has a squirrel that visits quite frequently. It is a different variety of squirrel and he is FAST.

(I shared this photo a few weeks ago during our tree study…we think it is a Fox Squirrel.)

He is busy eating the seeds from the tulip tree.

Look at those feet! No wonder they can climb and jump like they do!

He nibbles and then scurries off down the street, as if he has a regular route he takes to dine at various spots in the neighborhood.

He is fun to watch as he bounds down the street and up onto the neighbor’s narrow fence top. My son, who does a lot of his schoolwork in the living room at the table by the window, calls my attention to our resident squirrel all the time. We are getting to know him quite well this year.

The other day as I was driving down a fairly busy street in town, a squirrel decided to run out in front of me. I know from experience that they usually dart out of the way at the last minute and I try not to get too excited. This one seemed to look me in the eye as he sat in my lane of traffic, a crazy game of chicken. Starting to move, he zigged and zagged a little in front of me and stood still again as I got closer. I slowed a bit and started coaching him to “Get out of the way!” At the last possible moment, he ran off to the side of the road and quickly up a tree. Why do they do that?

For the most part, we enjoy our neighborhood squirrels and find a great deal of entertainment value in this rodent. Our favorite squirrel actually walks the telephone line at a busy intersection in town. We see him probably once a week doing his tight-rope act, defying gravity and giving us something to be in awe about with this little one of God’s creation.

Here is our link to our previous squirrel study if you would like to read that one:
Squirrel Study

Watch this video to see another common squirrel in our area…the California Ground Squirrel. This video was taken last spring on a hike we took not too far from our home.

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Barb — 10 Comments

Our Tree: Tuliptree or Tulip Poplar

Trees are such a part of our life and there are quite a few growing in our yard that delight us during the different seasons. In the past, we chose an oak and then the sweet gum tree to study for a complete year.

We talked it over and decided that our new year-long tree study as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenges will focus on a Tuliptree in our front yard. I was leaning more towards studying the Chinese pistache that is actually in our neighbor’s yard but so close to the fence line that it might as well be in our yard.

The boys campaigned for the Tulip tree and since the whole point is to get them enthusiastic about a tree, we will go with their choice. The photo above shows the top of the tuliptree and to the right of it is our magnolia. The tuliptree is much taller than any other tree in the front yard and gives us lots of shade in the summer.

We talked about the tree for a few minutes before we headed out the door to spend our Outdoor Hour Challenge time observing our new tree friend. We talked about how the robins like to sing from the top of the tree, how the seeds are like helicopters, and how tall the tree is growing. One son added that he likes the tree but it is one of the biggest producers of leaves and soon it will mean lots of raking and composting. I shared how I remembered the blossoms on the tree and the humming of the bees last spring. We already knew quite a bit about our tree so we were anxious to see if we could learn anything new.

We took photos of our Tulip tree and gathered a few leaves to put into the flower press. A journal entry was made so we can compare with our winter study.

Most of the leaves are shaped like this……

But there were some that were shaped like this……

We were wondering why the leaves on the same tree are shaped so differently…..any guesses?

Many of the leaves have fallen already and there are quite a few turning yellow-orange-brown as well.

This is the fruit that turns to the seeds….great helicopter seeds that fall by the thousands.

How about that bark? It has the fluffy green lichen and the flat bright orange lichen as well.

We actually had a squirrel friend spend some time in our tree this afternoon.

This was a great start to our new tree study and this tree will be easy to keep track of since I can see it from my bedroom window. I love watching the shadows of the branches and leaves on the blinds. It makes a great swishing sound in the summer when the breeze blows and during winter storms it has a sway and a creaking sound as it bends in the wind.

We will try to spend some time this week watching as the leaves start to really fall and before you know it, this tree will be bare. 🙂

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Barb — 19 Comments

Nature Study: Finding the Ordinary to be Extraordinary

Extraordinary in the Ordinary @handbookofnaturestudy

Find the Extraordinary in the Ordinary I challenge you to find five ordinary things in your backyard or in your everyday life that you can study and learn something more about. Find something extraordinary in something you have come to think of as ordinary and usual, so usual that you may not even notice it anymore.

Sebastian actually gave me this idea that I think would be a great challenge for nature study close to home. In order to start developing the idea, we challenged ourselves to go out in our backyard and find something extraordinary. I decided we needed a little clearer definition.

Extraordinary: beyond the usual, far more than usual, more than expected

It is that “more than expected” part that we want to develop an eye for in our family.

Here are the five things we will be learning about from the Handbook of Nature Study, the field guides from our nature shelf, or internet sources like WhatBird.com and eNature.com.

The blue of the morning glory is outstanding and we have never done a formal study of this garden flower. Now is the time to do it since we have lots of blossoms to observe. We already have decided how extraordinarily blue this flower is…not very common in flowers I think.

While we were outside, the cat was chasing this Alligator lizard. Lizards are not an extraordinary creature in our backyard but as we watched this lizard, we started to wonder about its defense mechanism…the breaking off of the tail to distract its attacker. We are going to do some more research about this extraordinary ability.

This California Towhee is a regular visitor to our feeder, or rather under our feeder. We have never taken time to focus our nature study on this particular bird but now we will. I’m sure there is something extraordinary about it that we don’t know yet. The most visible difference we have noticed about the California Towhee is its very long tail…hmmm….maybe that is extraordinary.

We have noticed an increase in hummingbirds in our yard this summer and there have been two in particular that we would like to study more in depth. I was unable to get a photo of the hummingbirds but thought you might enjoy seeing my new feeder. I think maybe the two unusual hummers we saw were migrating and I would love to learn more about where some of our hummingbirds go at different times of the year.

Caterpillars have been dropping out of the Sweet gum trees and before they can crawl away, the birds swoop down and eat them. These caterpillars are busily eating the leaves from the tree but we don’t know exactly what they will be once they go though their life cycle. Look at those colors, now that is extraordinary! We are going to try to identify these critters as part of our challenge.

Now we have a list of things to investigate.
1. Morning glories
2. Alligator lizards and their tail
3. California Towhee
4. Migrating hummingbirds
5. Caterpillar from the Sweet gum tree.

You can take the challenge to find the extraordinary in the ordinary if you are up to it! Find something in your yard to focus on and really see the beauty, the design, and the magnificence of something that perhaps you have been overlooking. It could be as simple as the dandelion in the crack of your sidewalk. It could be the robin gathering worms in your lawn. It could be the ants on your kitchen counter. The possibilities are endless.

If you take the challenge and you blog about it, leave me a comment and I will come over and read about it.

I will be posting our results over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned.

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

Raccoon Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge for Mammals

This post is long overdue. As I was going through all the past challenges, I realized that I never posted our study of raccoons.

In our neighborhood, we have raccoons. Big raccoons for the most part. They always surprise me when I see them because they are large, curious looking animals. We have had them look in our windows and french doors at night with their shining eyes. We have had them sit in open doorways and look in at us. They have been known to carry away whole bowls full of cat food. I had a big Tupperware container filled with catfood on the back deck and they would come at night and remove the cat food, carry the pieces over to the water dish, and proceed to wash the food and then eat it. We could see their hand prints on the deck and around the bowl. They are clever creatures indeed.

Last summer Mama Raccoon would bring her young ones in the middle of the night to climb the trees just outside our bedroom window. You could hear them making noises in the dark as they played and climbed. I am not positive but I think they would go up the tree and eat the seeds from the pods from the magnolia tree. They would rustle around in the limbs of the tree and if you shone the flashlight out there, their eyes would reflect like glass.

Here is a notebook page that Mr. B made for his nature journal about raccoons.

If you can’t read the bottom I will type it here for you to read. It makes me smile.

“One of the most adaptive mammals ever, the raccoon can make a living almost anywhere. Eating nearly everything it can put its hands on, raccoons aren’t ones to be starved easily. Some live eating grubs and fruit, but the majority of these sneaky thieves steal pet food, bird seed, and any valuables it could pawn off later for a good price. When caught in the act, they will climb the nearest tree and flaunt their invincibility by falling asleep up there. Guard dogs will do next to nothing because they will fight with ninja-like prowess when cornered.”

Funny.

This time of year our chances of seeing and observing a raccoon are very high. I hope we see one again soon.

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Barb — 8 Comments

Nature Study is Not Just About Nature Journals

I was reading a post on a discussion board about nature study and documentation this week and it reminded me of this post, Nature Study vs. Nature Journal , that I wrote a while back. The board discussion was more or less about some parents’ thinking that it did not count as “real nature study” if the children do not document the experience in their journals.

I tend to disagree with that statement.

The *most* important part of nature study is the actual time spent observing something in nature…..first hand and hopefully in your own neighborhood.

More is always better when it comes to outdoor time in my opinion. It seems to take a period of time to find your stride when you are just starting out with nature study. At some point though, each family finds a way to balance the outdoor time with some follow up activity.

I try to remember that we each have a different learning style. We can learn to apply that style to nature study. I remember reading about the multiple intelligences and how they applied the nine (used to be seven) ways children learn to a study of birds. I can’t remember the details so I will do my best to come up with my own examples.

Nature Study Using Multiples Intelligences

Musical learner: Enjoys listening to and learning to imitate bird calls. Easily identifies a bird by its call. Writes a song about birds.
Verbal-Linguistic: Records a birding experience in a nature journal using words or tells a story about the nature walk. Writes or copies a poem about a bird into their nature journal. Learns the Latin names of birds as well as the common names. Reads the biography of Audubon.
Mathematical-Logical: Tally birds at a feeder. Keep a running list of birds seen over a period of time in a nature journal. Collect bird feathers and categorize them into groups. Studies migratory maps and learns where local birds go for the winter. Learns all the state birds. Experiments with different kinds of bird seed to see which ones particular birds like best.
Visual-spatial: Makes a model of a bird from clay. Sketches a bird in their nature journal. Notices the differences between birds: beaks, wing shapes, tail shapes, size. Builds a birdhouse. Designs and builds their own birdfeeder.
Kinesthetic: Loves to take a walk and look for birds using binoculars. Climbs a tree to find a bird’s nest or just experience a “bird’s eye” view. Hangs a bird feeder and keeps it full. Plants a bird garden.
Interpersonal: Joins a birding group and learns from the more experienced birders about their local area. Volunteers at a bird reserve with a friend. Organizes a field trip to a bird aviary for their co-op.
Intrapersonal: Spends quiet time outdoors observing birds, perhaps recording their experiences in their own nature journal that they don’t share with others. Has a pet bird.
Naturalist: Enjoy lots of time outdoors looking for birds and learning their life cycles. Learns the names of birds, keeps a bird life list, learns the calls, and keeps a nature journal. Remembers easily the names of birds and their habits. Has a collection of bird’s feathers, bones, and nests.
Existential: Learns about endangered species of birds. Spends time contemplating a bird’s life cycle. Keeps a journal of their thoughts about birds and how they fit into the web of life on the earth.

You can see how if your child has a particular way of learning that fits him better than keeping a nature journal, you can provide a variety of experiences to tap into their natural learning style. If you feel the need to keep a journal of your outdoor experiences, go ahead and model how it is done for your child. Your children may catch on and want to keep one as well. I always try to give the option to complete a page in the nature journal but I rarely require it of my boys.

I listed some ideas for applying the seven/nine intelligences to a bird study but you can apply the principles to any nature study subject.

You are only limited by your imagination.

If you still are stuck on the idea that nature study needs to be followed up by a nature journal entry, I highly recommend that you find the book Last Child in the Woods at your local library and spend a few hours reading it to see how important any outdoor experiences are to our children. It will give you some valid reasons for putting effort into getting your children, as well as yourself, outdoors.

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Hummingbird Study: Our Outdoor Hour Challenge

This week we were on the lookout for hummingbirds as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge: Hummingbirds nature study. We haven’t had too many hummingbirds yet in our feeders, a few here and there that we have noticed. Summertime is hummingbird time in our backyard and we have several hummingbirds that perch on the tree behind our picnic table and in the evenings we see them sitting there watching us eat our dinner. There isn’t much information in the Handbook of Nature Study on hummingbirds but it is enough to answer a few of our questions.

The hummingbirds we have in our yard are Anna’s Hummingbirds and they are very pretty. They are green and pink and very fast flyers. They will soar way up high in the air and then suddenly swoop down.

The Handbook of Nature Study says, “Hummingbirds are not supposed to sing, but to use their voices for squeaking when angry or frightened.” We often hear the male Anna’s Hummingbird before we see him. He will fly up high in the air and then swoop down and make a chirping sound. They also make a sound as they sit on the branches of the tree…cuing us to look for his distinctive silhouette.

We found this video and now we are anxious to observe our hummingbirds to see if we think it is their tail that chirps.

There is always something new to learn.

I am fascinated with hummingbirds and our last trip to the desert was memorable because we visited a hummingbird aviary at the museum. I posted then about the hummingbirds.

Isn’t he gorgeous?

This one was not shy at all and we spent a long time watching him fly and sip.

Here is a hummingbird nest that we collected a number of years ago. I am in awe whenever I look at the way it is constructed.

Can you imagine how small the eggs are inside this miniature sized nest? Amazing stuff.

One last thing to share from this week’s Outdoor Hour time with the boys. We came across a very bold Spotted Towhee that let me come up fairly close and take a video of him singing his song. Enjoy.

Hope you enjoyed reading about our Outdoor Hour this week and our continued study of hummingbirds as well as any other bird that crosses our path.

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Barb — 7 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study #5-Pink Petunias

Confession: My petunias are from the garden nursery. I don’t really much like petunias but they are a happy spring flower that has brightened up our front and back decks with their cheerful blooms. My eldest son helped me pick the color and I am surprised that he picked pink because he usually picks much richer primary colors in flowers.

I don’t blog much about my oldest son because he is a very busy twenty-one year old young man who has a full-time job as a computer programmer and goes to college in the evenings. When he isn’t working or at school, he is sequestered away working on complicated homework or his various artistic ventures. Usually on the weekends, he spends his Sundays with us and for our family that means worshiping together and then spending some family time at home in the yard or outside hiking or walking the dog. My oldest is always up for a little time on the trail. He lives and works in a very technological world but he is still connected to the outdoors and feels the need to be refreshed by the sky, trees, and birds. We have some of our best talks as we share our outdoor time.

Anyway, back to our weekly flower study.

As always, we found something interesting in the Handbook of Nature Study about our subject. The story of our modern petunias is interesting and we talked about colors of petunias that we have seen in our area. We also learned that petunias are in the nightshade family. The petunia gives off its perfume at nightfall, perhaps to attract the hummingbird moths to feast on its nectar.

“With their long feeding tubes the hummingbird moths have little difficulty in securing the nectar, but bees also will work industriously in the petunias. They will scramble into the blossoms and, apparently complaining with high-pitched buzzing because of the tight fit, rifle the nectar-wells, that seem to be better adapted to insects of quite different build.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 583

The lesson suggests that each child have their own flower for observation and that they have access to a petunia bed to observe the habits of the plant. We will be adding a few more petunias to our flower garden so we can observe all the interesting tidbits contained in the Handbook of Nature Study.

There are lots of suggestions for sketches in this lesson. We will be adding to our journals as the spring and summer go by. I found a coloring page for petunias if you would like one for your nature journal.

So now it is your turn to pick a garden flower and pull out the Handbook of Nature Study and see what you can learn this week. We will be moving on to buttercups this week. We have been observing them on our hikes for a few weeks now and it is high time that we take a few minutes to really study them. You can pick any flower you have in your yard or that you have access to and can observe up close. Even if you don’t do a formal study…take a few minutes this week to share a flower with your child. After all, it is spring now!

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/07/new-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook-garden_27.html

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Barb — 4 Comments

Western Scrub Jays and Steller’s Jay: Our Outdoor Hour Study

For the most part these are pesky birds, chasing other little birds out of our feeders. They also are very noisy and their voice is more like a squawk than a song. 🙂

We often put out peanuts on our deck railing for them in the winter and they rally around and gather them up and store them in little holes in the garden. They do the same thing with walnuts and acorns so often times we find little walnut trees and oaks growing in our potted plants and in our flower beds.

They can be carnivorous as well. We had a dead skink in our backyard last year that we were observing and before we knew it, a scrub-jay swooped down and flew away with it. We saw him sitting on top of our neighbors roof pecking away at its snack. (I referenced the link to the entry that tells that story below.)

Last spring we had a nest of baby scrub-jays that we could observe from a bedroom window. We watched the babies as they hatched and then as they started to stick up their open beaks for mama and daddy to put something into it to eat. They were quite helpless. Here is an entry with a couple of photos: Scrub-jay nest. My son was able to get the above close-up of the baby Scrub-jay as it perched in the bushes in our front yard. Click the photo to get a good look at the baby feathers on his belly.

We have watched mama Scrub-jay teach her baby to fly in our front yard. It was painful to watch but the baby did eventually fly away after much coaxing from mama and papa. Here is the baby when it was learning to fly. It could sort of flap from the tree to the bush but then it was afraid to go anywhere else. The mama would fly back and forth in an attempt to demonstrate how to fly.

Look at that beak! We know why he has such a big pointy beak….he uses it to eat and peck and dig.

Here is a scrub-jay in the Mojave dessert. We were having a picnic and he flew down and grabbed my son’s sandwich roll and then he flew away with it….he stopped here and was pecking at the bread.

We also live where there are Steller’s jays and they are much more majestic in appearance than the scrub-jays. They have a crest on their heads and are a deeper, richer blue overall. They too are little pests. You can not have a picnic without one trying to grab something from your plate. They can be quite aggressive. They are very common in Yosemite National Park and you know the minute you open your picnic basket that they will come flying it to check out your selection.

Here is a video I shared before of a white-headed woodpecker in the forest. That is interesting enough but for this entry you might want to watch and see at about 1:00 the Steller’s jay that joins our picnic. I had put a couple of Cheez-its on the ground for him and he perches in the tree and cocks his head to look at us. Listen to the sound of his wings as he flies down to the ground to pick up the cracker. This is typical Steller’s jay behavior at a picnic. Bold and brave.

We do have Western bluebirds in our yard occasionally but not enough to really good a good look at them. We have observed their nesting and protecting behavior one time when we were out on a country road and there were some nesting boxes along the fence. It was spectacular to observe and their colors were brilliantly blue.

Scrub-jays are some of our favorite bird nature study subjects…..

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Barb — 7 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study-An Invitation For You

After writing yesterday’s post about flowers, I had the brainstorm to start with a Wednesday Flower Study each week.

I have been reading through the Handbook of Nature Study’s section on plants…especially wildflowers, weeds, and garden flowers and I realized that we have a long list of flowers that we need to include in our nature journals.

“The only right way to begin plant study with young children is through awakening their interest in and love for flowers.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 453

So in order to make myself accountable and to include you in the study, I have outlined a schedule of flowers to include over the next few weeks. Please feel free to make your own list of flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study.

Here is our list:

Flowers Blooming Already or That We Can Study Right Now
Violet (page 476) Finished 3/18/09. Here is a LINK.
Buttercup (page 516) Finished 4/27/09. Here is a LINK.
Tulip (page 552) Finished 4/1/09. Here is a LINK.
California Poppy (page 531) Finished 4/8/09. Here is a LINK.
Petunias (page 581) Finished 4/20/09. Here is a LINK.
Mullein (page 537) Finished 5/5/09. Here is a LINK.
Dandelion (page 531) Finished 3/25/09. Here is a LINK.

Flowers that We’ll Study in Addition to Those Above
Bleeding Heart (page 558) Finished 4/15/09. Here is a LINK.
Bachelor’s Buttons (page 578)Finished 5/20/09. Here is a LINK.
Sweet Peas (page 588) Finished 5/27/09. Here is a LINK.
Queen Anne’s Lace (page 542) Finished 6/3/09. Here is a LINK.

I think that should keep us busy for a few weeks. I realize that everyone’s list will be different and I look forward to seeing what your family finds to study.

I think we will start with the violet this week and perhaps the dandelion as well.

We will read through the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study and then use the observation ideas to go out and really take a look at our violets.There are a lot of ideas for nature study in the Handbook section on violets but first and foremost we will just enjoy the beauty and fragrance as we begin our flower study this week.

I am going to try to get the boys to join me for nature journal entries as well. One son has switched over to pressing flowers for his nature journal and one son would rather take photos so you will get to see a variety of types of nature journals as we go through the next few weeks.

Here is a link to wildflower coloring pages if you are interested in including something like that in your nature journal or as a way to see how to sketch them yourselves.
Wildflower Coloring Pages

So pick one flower this week and get started!

One flower, one tree, one bird at a time. It works.

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Barb — 4 Comments

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.

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