This week’s challenge was to focus on insects and moths in particular. We were able to see lots of moths close-up this week when we were camping. Once you turn on the lantern and set it on the table, watch out! Moths come a flying!
Here are some of the many moths we observed during the week. We were able to get good photos by turning on two lanterns and using one to attract the moths and one to light the moth for the photo. I did not use the flash on the camera.
I don’t think this one is a moth but some other sort of insect that is attracted to the light.
The next set of photos is from the back porch. I turned on the porch light and a little while later, we had plenty of insects that were sitting on the wall near the light. We were able to get good photos by shining a flashlight on the insect and then turning the flash off on the camera to take each one close-up.
Edit: Roberta says this is an adult cabbage looper. I think it looks right to me. 🙂 Thanks Roberta.
This looks more like a green lacewing than a moth but it was sure attracted to the light.
I have not taken the time to try to identify all these insects. I have a really hard time with that part of insect nature study. I spend hours and hours pouring through the field guides and rarely do I find what I am looking for. Insects are really hard to identify but we will persevere and try to update this entry as we find the names for these critters.
My son is going to help me identify the insects and make his journal entry on one of the moths we identify. He prefers to use a spiral bound sketchbook for his nature journal instead of notebooking pages.
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. 🙂
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 outthe 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!
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.
“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 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.
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!
This week has been a very busy week outdoors. We are busy tending the garden which mostly means watering and weeding.
I don’t mind watering but weeding is endless and frustrating. I have been getting up early to get outdoors before the heat but the job never seems to end. 🙂 My son has lots of herbs in his garden as usual and he loves to trim a little to add to each meal. He has oregano, basil, chives, cilantro, and dill growing. Herbs are so easy for a beginning gardener and they stick around from year to year so you don’t need to replant them.
All of our climbers are waking up and the bean poles are getting entangled with green bean vines.
The morning glories are starting to climb up too and I think I am going to have to add some string to my poles soon. The grapes are growing like crazy on the trellis and I can just imagine all the sweet little grapes we will be eating in a month or so. I plant eating grapes and not wine grapes so we can enjoy the fruits as we spend time in the yard. We have one vine that grows next to the pool deck and I love to take a swim and then enjoy a few grapes.
The garden is really growing now that the afternoon temperatures are hitting up in the 90’s.
We have baby zucchini.
Here is our first tomato of the year.
I even have okra sprouting up for the first time. I love okra and a few batches over the summer will make me happy.
The sunflowers are starting to look like sunflowers and thanks to the birds and the birdfeeders, I have volunteer sunflowers that planted themselves in the oddest places in the yard. I am letting them go for now and we shall see what happens.
Outdoor Hour Challenge #18
Now for our pollen assignment. We looked carefully for some insects on our garden plants and we were not disappointed. We saw an earwig, some ants, a grasshopper, and we heard lots of bees thanks to the lavender that is blooming like crazy.
Here is a blossom on our trumpet vine that the hummingbirds love but in this particular bloom you will see ants if you look carefully. If I were an ant, I would love to crawl into a trumpet vine blossom.
These are something new in the garden and I can’t remember quite what they are but aren’t they pretty? They are so buttery yellow and the pollen is easy to spot.
This is what happens when you leave a bag of walnuts on your back deck overnight. Some critter came and decided to have a nut-fest and leave behind all the shells. We are not sure but we think it may have been a raccoon. I am not exaggerating when I say that they ate half a grocery sack full of walnuts in one night. Oh well, I wasn’t in the mood to crack nuts anyway. 🙂
That is just a glimpse into our week this week. We had an afternoon hike at the San Francisco Bay last Thursday but I didn’t get that many photos. We were at a wildlife refuge right on the bay and it was a fantastic place to explore. We will be going back with our binoculars and field guides again soon.
Nasturtiums just starting to sprout in the flower garden
We had fun looking for different shaped leaves in our yard this week during our Outdoor Hour time. Once you get started you begin to see so many varieties of shapes and sizes. This entry is sort of my photo nature journal entry for this week. My son worked on drawing his leaves in his journal and you can find it below.
Hydrangea leaves have a fantastic vein pattern.
The fig leaves are really big this year.
Mimosa leaves are feathery and soft.
This is the catalpa tree leaves that are really big and so colorful in the fall.
I have about twenty more photos but I will stop there. I tend to get a little enthusiastic when we are in the middle of nature study. 🙂
Here is my son’s journal entry for you to enjoy.
He came up with his own way of drawing the leaves which I will share with you. He takes the leaf and traces the outline and then he fills in the details with his pencils. It is a compromise between free-hand drawing and rubbing and it really gives great results.
Here are last year’s sunflowers starting to bloom. This year we are going to have quite a few more to share with you but last year these ended up producing an amazing amount of seeds for the birds.
For this challenge we were to plant our sunflower seeds but since we did it early in anticipation of the challenge, we are already enjoying the fruits of our labor.
We have some that are getting to be about a foot high already. I planted a mix of seeds so and in this garden bed they are all short so they won’t cover my window where I sit at my desk and look out.
I think they will look like these from a few years ago and will be multi-colored.
I sent both boys out with their nature journals to sketch some of the sunflower seedlings and here are their entries along with mine.
I think it is interesting to note how we each have our own style of recording things in our journals.
One chose to draw a more “scientific” style drawing looking at it from the side-view. One son chose to draw it by standing and looking down at it showing the leaves. Then there is my journal where I attempt to take in one whole garden box with the beans, the rudbeckia, the marigolds, the weeds, and the sunflowers.
Well, that is how we accomplished our Outdoor Hour Challenge #16. By the end of the summer we will have quite a few sunflowers to observe and draw and share with the birds.
My daughter helped me out this week by drawing sweet peas in her nature journal. She used colored pencils to make this beautiful drawing.
We also spent some time planting more seeds in the garden this week. We are using a fantastic idea I found on Cocoa’s blog for challenge number 12. If you go over to her blog, make sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the entry to see their flower garden project.
We prepared a small flower bed next to our morning glories, put some potting soil in the wheelbarrow, opened the packets of seeds and sprinkled them. We mixed up the seeds and the soil and then took handfuls and spread them on top of our new garden bed.
Here is the flower bed all seeded and ready for some water and sunshine.
We are hoping that we get a sort of wild looking mix of flowers here over the summer.
Here is a beautiful bloomer we have in a pot on the back deck. I just love the bold colors of this flower.
We are getting quite a collection of garden flower drawings in our nature notebooks. So much color and variety are found right in our own backyard.
This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge for us was very enjoyable. Our flower garden is just bursting with color and with garden flowers as our focus we decided to read and observe a special kind of flower, the composite.
“Many plants have their flowers set close together and thus make a mass of color, like the geraniums or the clovers. But there are other plants where there are different kinds of flowers in one head, those at the center doing a certain kind of work for the production of seed, and those around the edges doing another kind of work.”
“Can you see that what you call the flower consists of many flowers set together like a beautiful mosaic? Those at the center are called disc flowers; those around the edges ray flowers.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 503
We had a great time studying these flowers and now we are going to be looking closer when we see a new flower to see if we can tell if it is a composite or not.
Here are some of our flowers that we observed.
Close up of a pink gilardia…can you see the anthers?
Yellow gilardias
Tickseed or corepesis
Pin cushion flowers where you can really see the flower parts
Pink cosmos, first one of the season
Close up of the different kinds of flowers making up the composite. Can you see the disc flowers and the ray flowers?
My son’s nature journal entry.
We then put the flowers in our press. I am planning on making a flower calendar to make a record of flowers blooming in our yard for each month of the year. This will be a beautiful way to document our flower study throughout the year by pressing some flowers blooming in each month, pressing them, and then affixing them to card stock with the month neatly labeled on each page. I will share our first month’s page when these are ready to be added.
Another great week in our garden. My son and I both learned something new and enjoyed our time outdoors with a focus and purpose.
