Outdoor Hour Challenge: Chickadees & Woodpeckers

We are so excited to be doing Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges again! This week, she listed several black & white birds as the challenge. Of the 4 listed, we have 2 kinds that visit our backyard: chickadess
& woodpeckers (red-bellied & downy).

We started by reading about both types of birds in The Handbook of Nature Study. The most interesting part to us was learning about the woodpecker's tongue. The woodpecker will drill a small hole into a tree to get to a grub or larva. The hole is so small, the woodpecker cannot open his beak to grab the larva. But, God has designed his tongue with tiny hooks that he can poke into the grub to spear it and draw it out of the hole. Wow!

Another interesting thing about a woodpecker's tongue is that it is very long (sometimes three times the bill length). And, there are tiny bones in the woodpecker's tongue that help the tongue to stretch out. (There are great photos and explanations at this Hilton Pond site.)

We also enjoyed reading about how woodpeckers will find a tree (or another object) which they really enjoy the resonance and will return to it again and again. We have had red-bellied woodpeckers come to the top of our fireplace again and again over the past few years to drill on our metal! It is very loud in the house, but they must love it. :-)

(Photos from top to bottom: red-bellied woodpecker in our yard; female downy in our yard; red-headed woodpecker taken during a nature walk)

Summer Learning Fun

We have 2 more days of school left. :-) We don't do any formal school during summer, but I still want to do some fun projects.

Last summer, we participated in Unplug Your Kids and I plan on doing it as often as possible this summer. Each week, there is a theme and you create some kind of project based on that theme. For example, this week's theme is: HOMEMADE. It's supposed to be a "surprise" but I'm thinking about making homemade noodles like my mom makes. Or, some kind of homemade food that we've never tried before.

I also plan on doing Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges like we used to do. This week's challenge is to study woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches or towhees. We see the first two in our yard fairly often, so we'll pick one of those.

And, we'd like to start doing the Think! challenges again, also. We were enjoying these, but we just got too busy I guess. I think the "new" challenge will be up in a day or 2 and I'll wait for it.

So, those are 3 weekly activities we will do when we aren't on the road. I think we're going to have a great summer!

Oh, and if you know of any other weekly challenges, let me know! I'd really like one about cooking with kids - something like a weekly recipe to try.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #28: Dragonflies & Damselflies

Barb's 28th challenge was to study and try to see dragonflies & damselflies. I had seen a hot pink dragonfly a few days ago, and was so happy to see it land on our bird feeder stand today!


Isn't it beautiful?

Then, we saw a handful of bees! We hadn't been able to find any for the challenge a few weeks ago, but now we have a few. And, if you can see behind him and a little to the right... love bugs. It is definitely love bug season and they are EVERYWHERE right now. We stopped at a stoplight today and 3 "couples" landed on our windshield.

A couple of days ago, this beautiful hawk landed on our bird feeder. Wow! I took this photo through the window and then we tried to slowly open the door, but he flew away.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #27 & Unplug Your Kids: Insects

(I decided to use this post for double duty as the Unplug Your Kids topic this week was: insects! So, instead of reposting these photos, I'll just link to this post from a few days ago.)

This week's challenge for Outdoor Hour was to study and look for bees. Sadly, we haven't seen many bees in our backyard for the past few years. We have 2 different types of plants that used to be covered in them, but we rarely see them now. So, we were outside and I was sure we wouldn't find any...

but, we found this one... she was dead. But, it was a great opportunity to study it close up and get a few photos.

We spent lots of time in the backyard this week. Alexandra saved this milkweed bug from the pool - he's drying off his wings.

I found this katydid on our sago palm. I love this photo! You might try to enlarge it. I think it is one of my best insect photos ever. And, I actually wasn't sure if this was a katydid or a grasshopper of some kind when I found it. I did some research and found that you can usually tell a katydid by its LONG antenna. They are sometimes even called longhorned grasshoppers, though they are more closely related the cricket.

And, this was just an incredible gift from God! My dog actually "found" it. This was right outside our back door. I actually thought this poor cicada was deformed... and dead. His coloring was so strange! So, I didn't even wake Alexandra to see it. About 30 minutes later, I took her outside to see it...And, he was out and letting his wings dry! Aren't those incredibly colored wings!!! I thought he was a most unusual colored cicada.

But, once again, I hadn't waited long enough... he is actually just an "ordinary" (but beautiful) cicada. Isn't that just amazing???

Outdoor Chalenge #26: Insects

We haven't done one of Barb's Outdoor Chalenges all summer! But, I love them and am happy to get involved again now that our school is back in session.

Right now, Barb's challenges are about different insects. Challenge #26 is about ladybugs and aphids, but she has told us that these are just guidelines. So, I decided to share about our nature studies from the past 2 days. They include insects, but not ladybugs and aphids.

On Saturday, we were running errands and we were seeing TONS of dragonflies. We went to the grocery store and saw 40-50 around the grass in the parking lot! At our own house, we saw about a dozen.

Today when I got home I saw about 6 dragonflies... and they were in a swarm of gnats... just eating them up! (I think.) Everywhere I looked there were gnats. And, there'd been lots of gnats this weekend, too. So, I guess the dragonflies are doing well because the gnats are doing well. If anyone has a better explanation for me, I'd love to hear it!

We have had LOTS of rain during the past 3 days... and much more predicted! The temperatures our nice, but you have to keep your umbrella handy. With all of this rain, we were pleased (isn't that strange?) to see so many mushrooms popping up... even in our own backyard. So, today we went on a mushroom hunt. We also read some about them. I haven't identified these, so I think I'll mainly just show you the photos of mushrooms in our neighborhood...

A fairy ring? And, we had a great time talking to this neighbor we've never really met before.

I'd read about making spore prints. Basically, you take the cap off of a mushroom and place it flat down on a black piece of paper. Then, you put a bowl over it so it doesn't get any drafts on it. Wait a few hours, and see what you've got! I thought it turned out really neat.

So, I think we'll be hunting for more mushrooms as we have about a WEEK more of rain ahead of us! I've seen a BIG one I'd really like to photograph...

Green Hour Challenge #10: Picnic

I drove 3 girls (including Alexandra) to the crime science field trip on Thursday. Afterwards, we had a picnic back "at school." I decided to use this for challenge #10.

Here's Alexandra being silly on the picnic blanket.

This was a very tiny, almost transparent light-green insect. I wish I could have photographed him better.

At one point, it looked like it was snowing! I searched around and found that this tree was shedding these little white petals. I'm not sure what it is.

We'd noticed these blackberry vines before and I found ONE ripe blackberry!

Very neat, tiny spider. This one looks really neat enlarged. And, I think he might be holding something, but I'm not sure. I love his hairy legs!

Alexandra actually found this leaf-footed bug about a week ago, but thought I'd go ahead and post it. She watched him for about 10 minutes and was surprised when he flew! He was about 1.75 inches long!

And, on Saturday I found this HUGE moth (about 4 inches wide) on a bush near my driveway. I looked him up on What's That Bug? and found he is an Imperial Moth. The females have more yellow, so I believe this is a male. They also go through 5 instars, like the luna moth, so I'm curious if this is typical of moths. I read on this site that the caterpillar can grow as big as a hot dog. Wow!!! I've also enjoyed looking at this site of moth photographers. Near the bottom of the page, it shows that both Luna Moths (which I posted about here) and the Imperial Moth are giant silkmoths, which are some of the largest resident moths of North America.

Green Hour Challenge #9: One Small Square

We started back to school today. It went pretty well after our 2 week break. And, we had a gorgeous day so we were happy to go outside and do one of Barb's challenges. Challenge #9 was to mark off one square foot of yard and see what you could find.

Roping off a square foot

A tiny feather I found in my square foot

We didn't find much in our squares except grass, but we had a great discussion about how grass grows by putting out feeders. In fact, I need to look it up in HONS, but can't get to it right now.

Our biggest "find" :-)

Cuddling with our chihuahua. She has a LONG tongue - can you see it???

Alexandra watched an incredibly tiny spider that crawled onto our blanket.

Before watering our flowers, I thought I'd check where we often find snails, and found this TINY toad! Sorry it's a little blurry.

And, we changed the water in the bird bath and found this love bug - all alone! If you aren't familiar with love bugs, they usually fly in pairs. I'm wondering what the orange bump is for and will probably have to do some research.

Green Hour Challenge #8 : Up Close

We had a lot of fun outdoors today as we did challenge #8. One of the main activities of this challenge was to take a magnifying glass out in your own backyard and look at things. Well, we did that. But, we actually quickly got distracted, so we need to do this again someday!

We enjoyed looking at this weed that grows in our yard - we used to call them baby strawberries, but they're really nothing like strawberries. They start as this little yellow flower...


...then the turn into this white "fruit" covered with little red "beads." Does anyone know what this is? We'd love to know!

Then, we went and looked at the garden we planted yesterday. We planted our gourds that we'd started indoors. They are looking OK. I hope they make it! We also planted some marigolds, verbena, and something else... I've forgotten its name. And, we planted more milkweed. When I looked at the photo I'd taken of it today, I noticed at least two little insects (ants?). I'm amazed at how often I take a photo of something and find something that I'd never noticed before! So, this was kind of like using a magnifying glass. :-)

We also found this neat egg sac of some kind on our sago palm.

Then, I decided to go and get some loquats. For the past few weeks, we'd been noticing trees in our neighborhood covered in yellow fruit. We even thought we saw some kids picking them and eating them. I had no idea what they were. Then, a few days ago, a friend wrote an email to a group we belong to saying that people should go eat some loquats and he briefly desribed them. So, I looked it up on the internet, and that's what we'd been seeing - loquats!

We went to our local park to pick some loquats. They have a thin peel and a texture kind of like an apple. But, they are sour!!! Alexandra really enjoyed them and ate several. Then, I started worrying that maybe I had the wrong fruit! Maybe they were poisonous! It didn't help that the first webpage I found when I got home told about a 5-year-old girl had eaten some that were not ripe and they had trouble waking her up. Yikes!!!

But, then I found this site that had a lot more information. First of all, it sounds like loquats don't produce fruit very often, so that might be why this is the first time I have noticed it. (It says they only fruit once a decade, but I'm not sure they were being literal.) And, the site said they were good to eat, but that the seed contains toxins. They also had a recipe for jam that Alexandra really wanted to make, but we didn't.

I'm also wondering if ours wasn't quite ripe. It was SO sour and another website says the fruit's "flavor is a blend of apricot, plum and cherry." (Doesn't that sound yummy?) It also says the loquat is native to Southeastern China, where loquat means "reed orange."

So, that was our adventure for the day. I feel like our moto should be "Never stop learning!"

Green Hour Challenge #7: Inchworm

I meant to go on a "real" nature walk with Alexandra this week, but it just didn't happen. And, I've been thinking about how to do Barb's challenge of making our own field guide for our chosen topic, flowerless plants, but we haven't done that, either. So, I thought I'd submit this wonderful impromptu nature study as our challenge #7. But, before I do that, wanted to show a "field guide" we made when we studied wildflowers last year. It is very much like what Barb described in her challenge and has information on the back. It is definitely a keepsake.

Today was my weekly day to watch the kids at Alexandra's "school" for recess. One of the little girls had found an inchworm. I was very disappointed that I didn't have my camera with me! This inchworm was brown and looked very much like stick. When he would "stand" on his 4 back "legs" and have his body stiff, he looked just like a twig on a branch!


Just a few days ago, I posted a question about inchworms and Makita at Twinkling Stars Family School was able to answer the questions. So, when the kids asked me some questions, I was able to answer some of them... but, I had to come home and do some more research tonight.

Inchworms are a specific type of caterpillar. Like most caterpillars, inchworms have 3 pairs of true legs in the front of their body, but usually only 2 pairs of false legs in back where most caterpillars have 5 pair. They move by drawing their back legs towards their front and then stretching out their body. (This caterpillar is moving "up" in the photo - and crawling on lichen!)

Inchworms are also called measuring worms, spanworms, cankerworms, and loopers. They are usually about 1 inch long. They belong to a family called Geometridae or the Geometer moths - "earth measuring." (I think we might discuss words that have "geo" or "meter" in them tomorrow.) You're probably familiar with the Inchworm song that teaches arithmetic. (See video at the bottom of the page.) We actually sing it when we see 8 x 4. (4 and 4 is 8, 8 and 8 is 16, 16 and 16 is 32....)

Two unexpected things happened while we were playing with the inchworm. At one point, something brown came out of the inchworms mouth (I guess) - ON Alexandra's hand. Yuck! (Is this a kind of spit?) And, I was holding it on a stick, and all of a sudden it dropped towards the ground with a thread. It was pretty funny as I wound and wound the stick trying to keep the inchworm from getting to the ground.

Also, one of the girls found a little green spider and brought it over to me. We watched it until it climbed under the bench I was sitting on. Well, on the way home, Alexandra says "That spider is on the back of your seat!" I guess he'd climbed on me at some point. So, I stopped the car and got him on a piece of paper, stepped out of the car, and flicked him off. Well, he just came right up his thread. He did this twice. I finally had to kind of wipe the paper in the grass to get him off.

Speaking of caterpillars (earlier), we bought some new Mexican milkweed this weekend and we have it sitting by our back door. We watched a butterfly yesterday who came and laid 3 eggs! (Or maybe it was several butterflies.) So, we'll be having caterpillars of our own before long.

What an unexpected day of learning, and I'm really enjoying learning with the kids. I love that they're bringing their nature "finds" over to me to share them with me!