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Beautiful Butterflies and Some Nature Journal Ideas

We were on the lookout for butterflies on our recent camping trip to Yosemite. Many were too fast or would not sit still long enough for a photo but here are a few that I can share. All these were butterflies that I saw as we went on various hikes in a variety of terrain and habitat. My daughter decided that she would rather take photos of flowers than insects because flowers stay in one place.

We did see some Monarchs fluttering and flying around the milkweed but there was never a chance to photograph one, maybe next time. 🙂

We are continuing our study for Outdoor Hour Challenge #22 for Butterflies.


Showy Milkweed in Stoneman’s Meadow, Yosemite Valley.


We know this is some sort of Fritillary but which exact one, we are not so confident. If I had to make a best guess, I think it is a Pacific Fritillary or a Western Meadow Fritillary.

Okay, there are two butterflies in this photo. It was taken in a marshy meadow area near Lukens Lake. There is one distinctly blue and one distinctly brown butterfly but I have no idea what particular ones they are even after examining the field guide for a long time. I’m not very good at identifying butterflies….yet.

Here is another blue butterfly sitting on some bird droppings. My best guess on this one is a Lupine Blue.

Now this one I think is a Woodland Skipper. I know it is a skipper for sure and it looks just like the one in my field guide.

You can see why I was able to take some good photos of these beauties, they were otherwise occupied with more important activities at that particular moment. I still haven’t been able to identify this particular butterfly. Any ideas???

Here is one of my nature journal pages that I used to record one of my experiences with butterflies. I was testing out the free notebooking pages for an upcoming Outdoor Hour Challenge E-book that we are putting together to share with everyone. This page shows my attempt to record a bit about our butterfly study this past week.

Someone was asking recently about how I keep a running list in my nature journal. This is so easy to do and it doesn’t need to be fancy. Tina has created an easy to use version of a running list that will also be in the upcoming E-book.

As you can see, I really just list the butterfly name if I know it and the date and place that I observed it. If I am not sure, I make a note and then use my photographs to identify it later when I have time to use the field guide and the internet.

So those are some of the butterflies that I was able to capture with my camera. We saw many, many Tiger swallowtails and a particular yellow butterfly that we have yet to identify. I look at this project as a life-long endeavor and if I don’t catch the butterfly this time, maybe I will the next time.

Edit to add: Heather asked about my nature journal and how I plan on using the notebooking pages if I am using a spiral bound sketch diary as my nature journal. I made a decision to change to a bigger size nature journal, still spiral bound since I find that easiest to work in. I only have three pages left in my smaller spiral bound nature journal so I will be starting over in a 9″ by 12″ spiral bound artist’s sketchbook that I purchased from Miller Pads and Paper. I will be attaching the pages into the sketchbook with double-backed tape; running lists will be in the back and the other sheets will go in order starting in the front. This will give me the flexibility to use the notebooking pages or to just freehand my entries in as I feel the need. I love to have options. This sketchbooks use heavy enough paper that I feel comfortable using watercolors in them as well as pencils and markers. Hope that explains it!

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Outdoor Hour Challenge #23 Moths

This week we will continue our mini-focus on insects with a study of moths. The Handbook of Nature Study has several sections on moths that you can read whether you think you will find those particular kinds in your area or not. I found the information very easy to read and now I can apply the suggestions for observation with just about any kind of moth. We do have Isabella Tiger moths in our area so I will be especially on the lookout for those when we do our observations. We will be going camping soon so it will be a perfect time to watch the moths that come to the lantern.

“Not only are insects numerous when we regard individuals, but the number of species is far greater than that of all other animals taken together. The number of species in a single family is greater in several cases than the number of stars visible in a clear night.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 295

Outdoor Hour Challenge #23 
Focus on Insects-Moths

1. In this challenge we will continue our mini-focus on insects. Turn to the table of contents in the Handbook of Nature Study and skim down the list of moths discussed in the book. Read those sections in the Handbook of Nature Study on moths, pages 310 to 329. I personally don’t know much about moths so I am going to read through all the sections and see what I can learn. Here is some general information.

Moths
Wings not attached
Nocturnal (active at night)
Wings flat when resting
Feathered antennae
Fat abdomen
Form a cocoon

Butterflies
Wings hooked together in flight
Diurnal (active in the day)
Wings upright when resting
Straight, plain antennae
Thin Abdomen
Form a chrysalis

2. This challenge will need to be completed in the evenings. Turn on a light outside or take a flashlight outside. Moths are attracted to light so you should have some success if you are patient. Make sure to look on walls and plants near the light for moths.

Try this website for further techniques in attracting moths.
Attracting Moths
http://www.mothscount.org/uploads/How_to_start%20_mothing.pdf

If you are unable to complete the challenge this week for moths, please feel free to take your outdoor time at a time that works for you family. Use your time to look for insects and to enjoy the summer air and sunshine.

3. After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. This might be a good time to discuss the differences between butterflies and moths. If you didn’t see any moths, you can record in your nature journal any other kinds of insects that you found during your outdoor time.

4. If you observe more than one kind of moth this week, make sure to start a list of moths in your nature journal. I like to keep a running list in the back of my nature journal. If you observed some other kinds of insects during the week, record those too.

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Drawing and Your Nature Journal

“The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
I was asked to post a little about my personal nature journal. I decided I would share, not because I feel as if I have the “right” answer but because I think it will be helpful to see how I have struggled through the years to find something that works for me. I am not an authority on nature journals, if there is such a thing, but I have been attempting this life project for many years now and have grown to love keeping a record of my experiences.

***Note to those just starting out with nature journals***
Everyone feels that little twang the minute a blank page is opened in the journal itself. I want my journal to be perfect and wonderful and worthy of awe but I don’t always seem to get what is in my head down onto the actual page so be comforted when you feel as if you are the only one that views your first efforts as inadequate.


I will try to explain what I have learned about nature journals and include some of my actual nature journal pages from the last eight years to help illustrate what I have discovered. Please know that it takes a lot of courage on my part to share my feeble beginnings and to show just how much I still have room to grow. Sharing these pages, others can see that this is a work in progress even for those of us who have been at the process of nature journaling for a number of years. (You can click on any of the images and they will enlarge.)

nature journal people
Here are some pages that show how I just do the best I can to get down on paper what I am seeing at the time. I don’t draw faces very well so I just left it blank. I also will sometimes just trace something like a leaf or a flower into my journal and then add a bit of color. It works.
The process of finding something you want to include in your journal is more important than the actual journal entry. When you are trying to keep a nature journal, you actually need to have some sort of contact with nature and that is the first step….usually the hardest step is just getting out the door of your house. The actual getting outside into your little square of nature is more valuable than the journal entry itself if you really think about it. You are outside under the big, beautiful sky. You are spending time with your children and showing them by your example that you value being out-of-doors. Anything that happens while in the process of finding something to record in your journal is the real experience of the nature journal.
nature journal not artisticnature journal birdwatchingnature journal weather

 

Nature journals are not meant to necessarily be artistic. Once I took the pressure off myself to have a journal like the examples in How to Keep a Nature Journal, I noticed that I was having more fun keeping a record of my experiences. The point of a nature journal is to record things that inspire you and you want to remember. Your experiences out-of-doors should spur you on to make a record of those memories that are worthy of remembering just like a scientist keeps a lab book. Sketches, arrows, cross outs, diagrams, lists….these are all found in my nature journal. 

It is my journal and it can be any way that I wish it to be.


Here I am trying to show the progress of our garden.

nature journal pressed flower
I opened my journal this morning and this pressed flower fell out. I had pressed it between the folds of a napkin and put it in my nature journal. You can also find leaves pressed between the pages of my nature journal. 
 
nature journal lists

Sometimes I just like to list what I take photographs of and not take the time to actually sketch or draw and that is what I did on this day. I still like the entry and I could go back and put the photos on the next page if I want to but for now it is just a list.
Keeping a nature journal is a long-term life project. I have one nature journal that I have been working in for over eight years. It is a work in progress. My favorite entries are those that are not necessarily the most artistic but they hold the memories of my time spent in God’s creation. My nature journal goes with me on every trip we take….I have packed it three times to Hawaii, to Yellowstone, on countless trips to Yosemite, and on most every little day trip I make. Do I always remember to pull it out and record things? No. Do I wish I would have made more entries? Yes. There is the lesson.
nature journal trip accountnature journal unfinished entry
Sometimes my nature journal doubles as my travel journal. On these two pages I wrote and sketched about our time at Redwood National Park. I didn’t have time to finish the sketch but it still is something that reminds me of that time.
If you want your drawing skills to improve, you must practice. Gulp. That is a tough one for most of us. I did not come from an artistic background so giving myself permission to try to learn to draw or paint or do anything artistic took a big shove from my husband. He encouraged me take a drawing class at the college. This was so far out of my comfort zone but I really wanted to learn how to draw past stick figures. It took time and effort. My suggestion for people who are striving to do a better job in sketching is to go to your library and go to the children’s section first and check out “how to draw” books and use them along side your children. I checked one out on how to draw insects and one on how to draw birds and then found some nature sketching books to try. These experiences with the book open in front of you and your sketching from the step by step instructions will eventually spill over into your nature journal.  

There is no magic formula but your success is equal to the effort you are willing to put into it. 

I started to work with watercolor and I was brave enough this summer to actually do a watercolor straight into my nature journal. You can decide what you need to teach yourself in order to make your nature journal your own expression of your experiences in nature.
nature journal watercolor
This is a more recent journal entry that I made *after* working through the book Sketching in Nature. I can already see the difference. I am starting to be able to take some of the ideas of others and make them my own in my personal nature journal. I am working on drawing the water so that it looks like it is moving…it is coming along.
I have recently become fascinated with the journals of Lewis and Clark and those of John Muir, the conservationist. The connections between their journals and their legacy is indisputable. Our journals and those we encourage our children to keep will be a link to their deepened understanding of how wonderful and exciting a world was created for us to live in.

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Chasing Butterflies -Outdoor Hour Challenge #22

Look at the eye!

Today we went out to look for butterflies as part of Outdoor Hour Challenge #22. We were optimistic. We persevered. We were rewarded.

I can’t tell you how much it helps to focus on a particular aspect of nature as outlined in the Outdoor Hour Challenges. If you had asked me if there were butterflies in our backyard, I would have said a definite maybe. We see them from time to time fluttering in the garden but they move pretty fast and we don’t get to spend a lot of time observing any one particular butterfly…..usually.

Today we sat out and watched and right away I saw a cabbage white skipping across the clover in the grass, not really sitting but flitting from blade to blade and then off he went. Next we saw what I think was a swallowtail of some sort. I am totally guessing and I say swallowtail because that is one type of butterfly we frequently have in our backyard. He was there and then he was gone way too fast. Then, after much sitting and focusing our eyes on the garden, we saw the best subject of the day. It was a fiery skipper. He sat on a bloom of the butterfly bush and we got to look at him closely. I went to get the camera. A few minutes later, he was back again and this time I was able to take the photo at the top of this entry. Fantastic!!!

The lesson of this blog entry. Pick your focus and be patient. I am ready and anxious to take some more time to go out with the boys and wait for butterflies.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2010/06/outdoor-hour-challenge-summer-nature.html

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Outdoor Hour Challenge #22 Butterflies

“If children are terrified of bugs, it’s usually because they caught the fear of adults around them.”
Charlotte Mason in Modern English, volume 1 page 58

Spending time outdoors at this time of the year usually brings us into contact with a butterfly or two. I know for our family we just about every day see some sort of butterfly in the garden. Little white ones, little bluish-gray ones, and big Tiger swallowtails frequent the many flowers and bushes we have blooming in our yard.

Let’s take this week to start looking for butterflies to learn about and talk about in our nature journals. If you have never learned about the life-cycle of a butterfly, check your local library for a good book on the topic. The Handbook of Nature Study describes the cycle with words but it is much more interesting to have a picture book that illustrates the most interesting of life-cycles.

Another way to study butterflies is to purchase a kit to hatch your own. This is the perfect way to observe each of the stages of life that the butterfly goes through.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #22
Focus on Insects-Butterflies

1. This challenge starts the beginning of our mini-focus on insects. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study the introduction to insects, pages 294-300. The Black Swallowtail and the Monarch Butterflies are specifically covered in the Handbook of Nature Study. You can read over those sections before your outdoor time in case you encounter those particular butterflies and to give you ideas for observing any sort of butterfly that you may have in your local area.

2. Use your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time to look for insects and in particular butterflies. Spotting butterflies might need to be done as you go about your daily activities and then taking the opportunity to do your observations at that time. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a butterfly this week but look at this as an ongoing challenge as the summer progresses.

Here is a link to an article on how to attract and catch/release butterflies.
How to Catch Butterflies

3. After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. You might consider drawing a butterfly and labeling its parts as a way of narration of the points you have discussed this week. If you found a different kind of insect, you can make a nature journal entry for that one as well.

4. If you observe more than one kind of butterfly this week, make sure to start a list of butterflies in your nature journal. I like to keep a running list in the back of my nature journal. Keep adding to your list of other insects as well.

For more insect nature study ideas: Insects on the Handbook of Nature Study

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Year Long Tree Study-Our Oak

“Children should also become familiar with trees at an early age. They should pick about six in the winter when the leaves are gone, perhaps an elm, a maple, a beech, etc, and watch them during the year.”
Charlotte Mason in Modern English, volume 1, page 52

Way back last August of 2007 we started our first tree study out in the woods. We took a piece of yarn and staked out a big square around the tree and did observations within that square and then also about the tree. The oak is really big and has lots of interesting things about it.

Here are a couple of the older entries to compare with this entry.
August Tree Study
Our Tree In The Woods: October

Here is our yarned off square. You can barely see the purple yarn unless you click and enlarge the photo.

Not much there except a few new little baby oak trees.

And near-by there was this poison oak turning red…..watch out for that stuff.

Then we noticed that as we walked we were being stuck by this plant….star thistle. I would consider this a WEED! Our backyard had this plant growing all over the backside when we moved in twenty years ago and my husband has very lovingly removed it all one plant at a time. We found you have to pull it up roots and all in order to get rid of it. It is an invasive weed in our area.

After we got back to the car, we realized our shoelaces and socks were covered with stickers of all kinds. They stick like velcro.

Well that wraps up our year-long tree study for now. We will probably keep our yarn up and continue through another year to see if we see any more changes.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2010/06/outdoor-hour-challenge-summer-nature.html

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Outdoor Hour Challenge #21 Notebook Challenge

Outdoor Hour Challenge #21
Keeping a Nature Journal

“As soon as a child is old enough, he should keep his own nature notebook for his enjoyment. Every day’s walk will give something interesting to add–three squirrels playing in a tree, a blue jay flying across a field, a caterpillar crawling up a bush, a snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider suddenly dropping from a thread to the ground, where he found ivy and how it was growing and what plants were growing with it, and how ivy manages to climb.”
Charlotte Mason in Modern English, volume 1 page 54

Outdoor Time: 
Use your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time to casually observe whatever comes your way. Many families are finding that if they are diligent about keeping their eyes alert to things around them, interesting subjects come up while going about their everyday life. Try to view your whole week as outdoor time and if you are out running errands, keep alert to anything you can observe as you walk along. Children can over time start to see more and more details and as their skills and senses are trained, your outdoor time will become more of a way of life.

Follow-Up: 
After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. My son was around three years of age when he started making “entries” into his journal. He would draw and I would label for him. You can help your child think of something to draw after discussing the day’s activities. Here is a link to the Outdoor Hour Flickr group with examples of nature journals done by participants.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/naturejournal1/

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/02/announcing-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook.html

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Outdoor Hour Challenge #20 Our Summer Tree Study

We have had hot smoky weather for the past two weeks with all the fires burning in our area. It is very unusual for the wildfires to start so early but my husband says that the fuel in the forests is so dry that it doesn’t take much to get it going. We had several dry lightning storms and two weeks ago we had extremely high winds. All these factors together make for extreme fire danger.

We have been enjoying our outdoor time both in the garden and out on hikes in our local area. First of all though, here is my son’s summer tree study.His tree doesn’t look that much different from our last study. There are lots of green leaves which my son thinks are darker than they were in the spring but it is hard to tell.

Here is a close up of the leaves.This time he measured around the trunk and found it to be 28 inches in circumference.

This is what he noticed had changed the most about the tree. It had these sprouts coming up from the bottom of the trunk. We usually snap these off as they sprout but my son wants to leave them just to see how they grow.

We are anxious to compare our summer tree with our autumn tree!

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/02/announcing-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook.html

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Grasshopper on the Daylily (Katydid)

As I was watering the garden this afternoon I noticed this big guy on the daylily. He was rubbing himself in the pollen and thoroughly enjoying himself. He didn’t seem to mind that I was watching him and taking a few photos. Amazing….simply amazing.


Look at those really long antennae.


What a great discovery this hot summer afternoon. The flower is just gorgeous too…..if you didn’t notice. 🙂

“When any creature has unusually strong hind legs, we many be sure it is a jumper, and the grasshopper shows this peculiarity at first glance.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 339

There is a section on grasshoppers starting on page 338 of the Handbook of Nature Study.

Edit to Note: Makita helped me realize that this particular insect is actually a Chaparral katydid. So now here is my question: Is a katydid a kind of grasshopper? In my field guide it says, Chaparral Katydid, Platylyra californica, grasshopper order. Are grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets all related or am I reading my field guide and misunderstanding? Insect identification is my least favorite thing to do in nature study.

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Channel Islands National Park

How can you live in a state your whole entire life and not know about a fascinating, secluded, national park right at your doorstep? Off the coast of California is the least visited national park in the United States, Channel Islands National Park.

We were trying to think of something new and interesting to do during our few days we had down the coast and this came up and we decided to take a chance and go out to the islands. We caught this boat in Ventura, California early in the morning.

As we started out of the harbor, we saw this whole flock of pelicans sitting on the rocks of the jetty. If you have never seen a pelican close up….they are huge and wonderful to watch as they fly.

We chose to go to the largest of the Channel Islands to do some day hiking. Santa Cruz Island is about an hour’s trip by boat from the coast.


As we cruised out to the island, we were happy to learn that a park naturalist was on board and would be giving a talk once we got to the island. The naturalist came around and introduced himself to our family and I told him that we were taking the trip to the island as a way to build interest in marine biology since we were going to be studying it this school year. He was so thrilled to have interested listeners and he gave us his special whale lecture as we rode along on the boat. He knew his whales and we were interested to know that we could actually see whales during their migration from the island at certain times of the year. (I see another “field trip” later in the year.)

Once on the island I realized that it was a wildflower paradise. Check out the size of these morning glories, unique to the islands.

How about this beauty of a flower….I haven’t identified it yet.


And this is the remnants of a wild cucumber. See the seed inside?


We hiked about five miles from one part of the island to another. We started at Scorpion Ranch and then went to Scorpion Point and then went over to Potato Harbor.


Look at the color of that water and I wish you could have audio from this place. We could hear sea lions barking from the rocks at the entrance to the harbor.

There were many sea birds but the one bird that I never got tired of seeing was the raven. Their flight is so graceful and lovely to watch. Here is one raven that actually stayed in my camera’s line of vision long enough to get captured.

Back at the cove on the dock where we waited for the boat to pick us up at the end of the afternoon, we were interested in watching the kelp as it swayed in the water. It was truly like an underwater ballet.

You can also see if you look closely in this photo, purple sea urchins under the water….lots of them.

Then at just as the boat was due to pick us up, this sea lion came to give us a show.

This was a fantastic place for nature study and you can camp on the island…a little primitive but Santa Cruz Island has potable water. I highly recommend a visit to the Channel Islands National Park if you are ever in California.

We are going to go back and spend a few days sometime in the next year. I would love to go whale watching and sea kayaking.