Next are some Mule’s Ears…this is the biggest clump I have ever seen with them all in bloom. Perfect. (Ignore the camera strap in the corner of the photo.)
So much like a sunflower and the bloom is rather large. You can really see the soft looking texture of the leaf which gives this flower its common name.
I wasn’t the only one enjoying the blossom.
Next came the lupine again….so much of it now along the trail: Miniature lupine.
Here is its leaf.
Last but not least, the California poppy. You can see one getting ready to open up and the other still in the bud stage with its “hat” on.
I have about four entries worth of photos to upload but I am out of time this evening. Stay tuned….our bird entry is coming up in a day or two as well.
This is one of my favorite bird studies of all time! I am very interested in learning to identify birds by their call since many times I do not actually see the bird but hear it up in the trees. My boys are really helpful in recalling bird calls and they are actually better at this skill than I am. We have made our list and I will share with you our results in another post.
Outdoor Hour Challenge Spring Series #3
Spring Bird Study
Inside Preparation Work:
As part of our spring nature study this week, we will prepare by learning about some familiar bird songs. Read about the “Songs of Birds” in the Handbook of Nature Study on pages 42 and 43.
Here is a link to a page that will help you learn about to listen to and then identify birds by their calls:
Brainstorm a list of birds you know that live in your area. Pick two or three to research on the All About Birds website. Look up each bird and listen to their bird songs. Challenge your children to imitate the bird song and to listen for it when they go outside.
Outdoor Hour Time:
Spend your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time this week looking and listening for birds. You might try going out several times during the week at different times of day to listen and observe.
This will be a week you can work on a few minutes of quiet time while you are in your backyard or local park. Remind your children that if they are quiet even for one minute they might hear a bird or other animal. One minute can see like a lifetime for young ones so use your good judgment on this activity.
Follow-Up Activity:
Take a few minutes to follow-up on any interest that came from your outdoor time even if your children were interested in something other than birds. Review the bird songs you learned and practiced during your preparation work. If you saw an unfamiliar bird, try to identify it using a field guide. Learn more about identifying birds here on this page: Bird Identification Skills.
If you do not have a field guide, you can try this online bird site to help identify birds: WhatBird? And this website for additional information as well: AllAboutBirds.
Don’t forget to look up any birds you identify in the Handbook of Nature Study and see how Anna Botsford Comstock suggests you learn more about that particular bird by reading the narrative and the accompanying lesson.
Allow time for a nature journal entry using the accompanying Spring Bird notebook page from the ebook or your own nature journal.
If you are really interested in learning more about birds, you can work through my bird series of Outdoor Hour Challenges that are found on the Bird Page here on my blog. .
If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one book, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the winter months as well. Please see this entry for more details: Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation
We have a section of our yard that I like to keep sort of wild just to see what will happen there. It borders our neighbor’s yard and sometimes he gets a little zealous and mows the “weeds” down. He doesn’t see the beauty in dandelions, Queen Anne’s Lace, Spring Beauty, Chickweed, and California Poppies. Well, maybe he enjoys the poppies, but it is nearly impossible to mow without cutting them all down.
I had a chance to get out there and make some close observations, capturing some of the flowers and plants before our neighbor gets back from his vacation and gets antsy to mow.
If you have a spot in your yard that you can let the “weeds” grow, I highly recommend taking the time to check out what you have right there in your own yard.
Another day, a few more wildflowers. This time of year we take walks just about every day and with the weather warming up, all the flowers are blooming in succession.
The Blue dicks or Wild Hyacinth are really blooming in our area. This hillside near our walking trail is just covered in them.
Here is a close-up look at these lavender colored flowers….my favorite color. The stems are a reddish color and even though they look sort of flimsy, they are rather rigid and hold the flowers up high.
I have been thinking this is fennel but now looking in our field guide, I’m not so sure. It must be a member of the parsley or carrot family: Patterns of the Parsley Family.
We also noticed the Miniature lupine is blooming all along the path.
Here is a little bit closer up look at the Miniature lupine.
It is such an exciting time of year to be outdoors! The birds, the flowers, and the sky are all so wonderful to experience. It is out there waiting for us if we put out the effort.
Birds we observed:
Soaring turkey vultures
California towhees
Western scrub jay
White-crowned sparrows
Birds we heard:
Downy woodpecker
Mourning doves
Finches-don’t know what kind
Steller’s jay
We had a chance to enjoy another perfect spring afternoon hiking on our favorite trail. We were amazed that in the last week so many wildflowers have burst out in bloom.
As part of the Spring Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges, we completed our Spring Weather Challenge. It was warm at 69 degrees (per our car thermometer). There were some breezes moving but not much.
Sunrise 6:34 AM
Sunset 7:35 PM
13 hours and 1 minute of daylight
Official high temperature: 68.8 degrees F
Official low temperature: 40.8 degrees F
Breezes coming from the South.
Our weather forecast is for rain the next two days and then back up into the 50’s the rest of the week.
The chamise is blooming all up and down the foothills right now and with its sweet fragrance it fills the spring sunshine. The clouds were whispy and moving very fast.
More cirrus clouds were to be found around the bend. My son has been studying the weather for his aviation course so he is teaching me lots of things about clouds and weather predicting.
This is a new flower to us and we came home to look it up in our field guide. We think it is Blue eyed grass.
Our state flower, the California poppy, is blooming all around town. This is on the hillside next to our walking trail.
Here is our winter weather entry if you want to compare our differences: Winter Weather.
Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #2 Spring Weather Observation
Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 851-854 in the Handbook of Nature Study. This section is not exactly about weather, but it ties in nicely with some springtime observations of the sun and its path. You might like to construct the Shadow Stick (page 852 #13) and make observations over the next few weeks and months with your children. At the very least, look up your sunrise and sunset times to calculate how much daylight you have now that it is spring in your area.
If you have the older edition of the Handbook of Nature Study, you need to look in the section “The Relations of the Sun to the Earth” for this week’s reading.
Your Outdoor Hour time this week can be spent making observations about the weather. Enjoy whatever spring weather you are currently experiencing and spend 15 minutes outside looking at the sky, clouds, wind in the trees, dew on the grass, mud puddles after a rain, or whatever else you can experience in your part of the world.
Suggested Observations
Have your children describe any clouds they see in the sky.
Notice how hard the wind is blowing by how things are moving: leaves rustling, trees bending, etc.
Notice the wind’s direction. Where is it coming from?
Describe the temperature of the air and/or look it up on a thermometer.
Notice any precipitation that you may have this week: sprinkles, rain, mist, sleet, snow, fog, hail.
If you made a Shadow Stick, make sure you spend one day marking the board every half hour from 9 AM to 3 PM. This experiment will need to be repeated again in June, September, and December if possible. (see page 852 #13)
Follow-Up Activity:
Be sure to complete your Seasonal Weather notebook page from the Misc Tab or from the Spring Series ebook. If you completed previous weather notebook pages, pull those out and compare the scenes you recorded in Autumn and/or Winter. Note that your days should be getting longer and any other differences you can find between the observations made in the past and now.
Extra Information on Clouds
If you observed any clouds, you might like to download this lesson plan and cloud identifier activity for your children: CloudKey.pdf. This is a handy tool to use in our cloud identification.
We were able to get out and enjoy our spring temperatures this afternoon, completing a tree study of our Tulip tree as part of our on-going year-long tree study for the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
Our Observations
Leaves are showing on many of the branches but there is still lots of growing that needs to happen.
The seeds from last fall are still visible on many of the branches. Hard to believe it still has that many.
We did not see any insects or birds this afternoon but this tree is a favorite of our early morning robin, the Western scrub jays, and the white-breasted nuthatch. We see them in this tree daily now.
The leaves were all very small but we did compare a few and they are the same shape.
There are lots of changes in the leaves and colors since the fall and winter. The shape of the tree is different as well because all of our freak winter snow broke off many of the branches in this tree…a few ending up on the roof of our house.
We discovered that we will not be able to use the activity on page 626 to measure the height of our tree. The tree’s shadow lands squarely on the roof of our house in the morning. I am going to ask my husband if he can help us figure out how to accomplish the task.
We came back inside with one of the leaves and my son and I both sketched it into our nature journals.
His is very simple while I took a little more time and played with my watercolor pencils and my Prismacolor pens.
We found this interesting website on our tree: Yellow poplar or Tulip Tree. This tree is not native to California, but many choose it to grow as a shade tree. We like the shade as well as the leaf shape and the flowers later in the spring.
Here are our autumn and winter blog entries for this tree.
It is not too late to get outdoors and start observing a tree. You can even start this season and continue over the next year. The best way to observe your tree is to go outside and quietly sit and look at your tree. You may be surprised and see some visitors as you sit. I am anxious to see how your family’s tree has changed since the last time you reported in.
We were visited by a migrating flock of Cedar waxwings this morning. We had a break in our rainstorm long enough for these beautiful birds to take a rest in the tree outside our window.
They were busy soaking in the sunshine and fluffing their wings and feathers.
Can you see the yellow tips to their tails?
Their bellies are a softer yellow and they have lovely crests of feathers on their heads.
But my favorite parts of all are their black masks and beaks.
These birds are not discussed in the Handbook of Nature Study, but we read over the section on beaks (Lesson 5) and migration (between Lesson 3 and 4) Then we looked Cedar waxwings up at AllAboutBirds.com and in our field guide.
After looking at the migratory map in the back of our Peterson Field Guide, we realize that these little birds travel all the way back up to Canada to breed. Truly amazing when you think about it for a minute.
What a great gift this morning to have these visitors to observe and enjoy.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
In case you are wondering, I took these photos with my old point and shoot through the window….how about that? I was really happy with how great they turned out. 🙂
We are holding off on the exact identification until it totally leafs out. We think it may be a silver maple which is not native to our area, but we know that we did purchase it from a nursery over a decade ago. The whole situation with this tree makes me wonder if I will ever know my own backyard.
It humbles me.
We always enjoy the tree no matter what its exact species is anyway and my husband reminded me of how much I enjoy this particular tree with its beautifully shaped limbs and its pretty leaves. It also gives us much needed shade on the back of our house when summer comes.
I already shared a photo of the helicopter seeds but here is another one for this study. We did learn from our research that these are officially called samaras.
My son and I went out and really truly looked at this tree one afternoon this past week. We observed a few new things. First of all, it is ready to leaf out and the sweet gums are still in buds. Next, the samaras are not on every branch. We have looked in our field guide and then online, finding no information about why that is so.
We remember now that the leaf buds on this tree are bright red and the sweet gums are light green. My son also reminded me that this tree has a time of year that it drops sap lightly on the rocks below it. The leaves and the rocks below get all sparkly with a sticky substance.
After discussing it as a family, we decided that all these years we just thought we had two different varieties of sweet gum trees. It never occurred to us that it could be a totally different tree.
This should make all of you feel better knowing that I am just like you. I am learning every week as our family slows down to study and learn about all we have living in our backyard. The other lesson that we learned over the last week is that we actually learn more when we are wrong about something. It takes real determination to research and compare in order to dig down to the bottom of a mystery. We now know more about maples and sweet gum trees than ever before. I am positive there is still a lot more to learn on this topic.
What is the saying? The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. I think that is how it goes. It perfectly illustrates how I feel right now.
We have been trying to spend some time outdoors every day, but we are told to expect more snow tonight. It has been a crazy spring so far!
Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #1
Spring Tree Observation
“Like a friend is a tree, in that it needs to be known season after season and year after year in order to be truly appreciated. A person who has not had an intimate, friendly acquaintance with some special tree has missed something from life.”
Anna Botsford Comstock, A Study of a Tree
Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 625-626 in the Handbook of Nature Study: Spring Work. This part of Lesson 172 should give you lots of things to think about as you prepare for your spring tree study observations. If the tree you chose to study has a section in the Handbook of Nature Study (check the table of contents), you might want to read the lesson for your particular tree in preparation for your Outdoor Hour time as well.
The Handbook of Nature Study suggests measuring the height of your tree using a stick 3½ feet long and a measuring tape. See page 626 Lesson 172 #4 for details.
Outdoor Hour Time:
Now that spring has come, it is time to check on your tree from your Year-Long Tree Study. If you are just starting out with a tree study, pick a tree from your yard that you can watch through all four seasons. Spend 10-15 minutes of your outdoor time using the ideas from the Handbook of Nature Study to do some focused observations of your tree.
Simple Suggestions for Spring Tree Study:
Pick a tree in your yard or on your street and look for its new leaves and blossoms if appropriate.
Is it just beginning to show leaves? Can you tell if your tree has all of its leaves yet?
Can you see any insects or birds in your tree?
Collect a few leaves to use for leaf rubbings in your nature journal. You could also make a leaf bouquet.
Compare two leaves from the same tree. Are they exactly alike?
Use your nature journal to record a sketch of the leaf and any blossoms.
How has the tree changed since autumn? Winter?
Follow-Up Activity:
After your outdoor time, complete a nature journal entry using the notebook page I provided for the Spring Series, a general notebook page from my freebies page, the original notebook page, or your own blank journal. Photos of your tree are a good record in your nature journal as well.
If you would like to make some leaf prints with your spring leaves, please see my blog entry with instructions: Making Leaf Prints
Drawing your tree can be easy if you follow the instructions found in this file: Guide to Sketching Trees
If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one book, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the winter months as well. Please see this entry for more details: Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation
