Tree Class & Pond Play

Today was nature day for our nature group. We haven't made it to many outings this year and I didn't know most of the people there. But, we did see some old friends, and we made some new friends!

One of the moms arranged this meeting at her house in the country. Actually, it is a neighborhood, but they have 10 acres... 10 beautiful acres! She brought in a horticulturist to teach us about the tress on her property.

Here he is answering one of my questions:

Q: What makes a compound leaf a compound leaf and not just a bunch of leaves? 

A: All of it comes from one leaf bud.

Another questions I asked:

Q: What makes a tree "mature"?

A: When it pretty much has grown full size - both in height and girth. He said scientist were recently surprised when they put sensitive growth monitors around massive sequoias and found they are STILL growing!

Of course, I had to photograph some critters. We found a lot of these caterpillars. In fact, the family said they are everywhere and constantly dropping on them. We also saw a deer as it stood and watched the children playing in the pond. I grabbed my camera, but I wasn't fast enough.

And, the kids had a BLAST playing in their pond! The family dug it out about 2.5 years ago. And, they never stocked it with fish but it now has 3 kinds of fish. How? Birds, like egrets and cranes, visit ponds and the fish eggs can get stuck on their feet and legs. Then, of course, when they visit a new pond, they leave the eggs! Wow!

This was the other best part of the day for the kids - the water slide, jumping platform, and zip slide. Alex's favorite part was the jumping platform. The moms basically sat in the shade and talked. It was a wonderful day!

October's Nature Day

We are getting ready to go on November's Nature Day outing, and I have never posted about October's. In October, we went to Mercer Arboretum and had about 40 people in attendence. The focus of our walk was mushrooms. Because I was 'leading' the group, I felt a little more rushed and didn't get as many good photos. But, we did have a great time! We saw LOTS of mushrooms, including this purple one.

I was excited to see the Cypress pond - we could walk on the dry ground where there is usually pond water!!! It was so neat to see all of those beautiful cypress trees, which are usually growing in the water, on dry land! The kids really had fun exploring.

Another photo where you can see the base of these fascinating trees better.

One of our smaller finds - a daddy longleg.

And, I know some of you don't like snakes, but this was so neat! Some kids spotted this garter snake (our 2nd snake of the day) and were trying to catch it. I'm really not comfortable identifying snakes but they insisted it was a garter snake (which I thought it was) and that it'd be safe to catch it. They were chasing it around a tree, and guess who caught it... her very first catch!... yes, me!!! (Oh, I used to catch ring-necks as a kid, but they are only worm sized.) Anyway, I was so excited and held it for awhile before handing it to the kids. What a great day for me! I love snakes! (My sister had a pet python as a child and we caught those ring-necks whenever we could... just love 'em!)

Rainy Nature Day at Beach

What kind of creature is this??? (Answer below.)

Yesterday, we went on our first Nature Day outing of the year. Our group has now grown to a staggering (to me) 141 families!!! But, we have had a lot of rain this week and we had a 100% chance of rain by 1 pm. So, we only had 3 families for our trip to the beach... and we all rode together in my friend's 12 passenger van.

When we got to Galveston Beach a little after 10 am, it was overcast, but not raining. We were surprised to see so much of the sandy parking lot under water! In fact, we were a little worried that the van might get stuck in the water. We saw one other mom with her 3 children, so we thought they might be new members. I went over to ask if she was with the homeschool nature group, but she said they were just skipping school. :-)

Here's a photo of the empty beach and the clouds. We stayed for about an hour and a half. For about 45 minutes, it was pouring, but it didn't stop us from having fun!

The water wasn't too bad and the kids went wading and built sandcastles since they had all been to our sandcastling "class" back in May. I was really impressed with the castles - one girl made a wonderful arch! I didn't get any photos because it started raining and I was afraid I'd ruin my camera. I'm checking to see if one of the other moms has a photo.

We did really encounter some neat nature. We found 2 different types of seeds that were really interesting. (I'm checking to see if the other moms have photos of these, too.) The kids also found a tiny crab and one of the moms had a net and they caught 3 fish! But, the neatest find to me was this little guy. It is the same critter as the first photo, but we washed him off. In the first photo, I thought his head was on the right and his tail was on the left, but we found out that the 'tail' is actually his antennae! In the above photo, he is upside down and you can see some of his 10 legs (some are sadly broken off, but yes, he was alive).

So, what is he? (And, in this photo he is facing to the right.) He's a type of crab - a mole crab (or sand crab or sand flea). He's a small crustacean found on the coast. They live under water in shallow sand near the shore. They have 2 antennae (we think his were stuck together) that usually 'feather out' to catch plankton in the intertidal zone. When you see bubbles coming out of a hole when the water recedes from a wave, you might have a mole crab 2-12 inches below that location! (I'll have to dig for some again sometime.) The boys had a big shovel and were building a sand castle and I guess that is how they found this wonderful creature, and I'm so glad they did!

Nature Walk with 2 Surprises (at bottom of post)

I invited our nature group out to one of our local parks to do a nature walk focusing on dragonflies since we'd seen so many of them last week when we let Marvin go. Even with the heat (we've been in the triple digits for quite awhile, though today was only in the upper 90's) and a few days notice, we had about 15 people show up. And, we were in for some surprises!

First we fed the critters including...

pigeons (& ducks)...

nutria, including 4 babies...

and a cute squirrel.

Then, we watched the turtles. I've only noticed the red eared sliders before. I saw 2 of these very large turtles (quite a bit larger than dinner plates) with these crazy long noses. I was guessing they were hog nosed turtles, but now I think they are called soft-shell turtles (which one of the moms mentioned). Besides the funny nose, they also had long necks. In this photo, the turtle's shell doesn't start until almost the edge of the photo. I didn't notice that while I was at the pond, so I'll have to go back and observe these turtles some more.

Here's a photo of his "cute" nose!

Next, as we walked around the pond, I found this tiny caterpillar. It acted very strangely. Whenever I got near him, he would "jump" into a circl shape and "hop" out of the way! He could "hop" about a foot or so and he was really hard to catch. He had light blue and brown stripes.

We did see lots of dragonflies and damselflies. I think this might be a type of darner.

And, a male common white tail skimmer.

Here is one of our first 2 big surprises. This is one of those suprises where I don't realize what I've photographed until I get home. Do you notice that little brown "bug" above the dragonfly? When I got home, I thought it was a little bug I happened to catch in the photo. Then, I realized what it was... this dragonfly has JUST MOLTED for the LAST TIME and has emerged as a "grown up" dragonfly!!! Isn't that neat??? (And, did you know adult dragonflies can live for 5 to 6 years? And, that larval dragonflies eat larval mosquitos and adult dragonflies eat adult mosquitos? Pretty handy to have around!)

And, our other big surprise... the kids found this turtle. This red eared slider had dug a hole and the kids were wondering if it might be laying eggs. I honestly didn't know! I've read quite a bit about sea turtles going on shore to lay eggs, but hadn't thought much about pond turtles.

Well, unfortunately this little momma got scared by all of the people around and high tailed it out of here... and she was FAST!!! (Well, fast for a turtle!) And, there were no eggs in her nest. But, yes, it was her nest! She was going to LAY EGGS! I wish I would have realized it and we could have snuck off and kept quiet and perhaps seen this amazing event.

We had a lot of fun today and you never know what you'll see if you just go outside and take a look around!

Sandcastling

About a week and a half ago, our nature group went on a wonderful Nature Day to the beach! We have a member who builds sand castles - and she offered to teach us! We had at least a dozen families attend this wonderful event.


Above is the castle Ms. Dawn built before we arrived. She would teach us the basics of building towers, building arches, building "balls" (I'm not sure what to call them, but they are on the tops of the towers), and carving.

Ms. Dawn first demonstrated how to build using the dribble method. Basically, you get some really wet sand and just dribble it out of your fingers. The water in our gulf is REALLY dirty looking, but Ms Dawn said all of the silt helps to act as a glue and is great for sandcastling!


Next, she showed us how to build a tower. You start by picking out your location (it helps to know when high & low tides are!) and digging a hole -with a big yard shovel! Then, she uses what is called the pancake method. Basically, you have a trench and then a big hole where you mix sand and water like pancake batter. Then, you use your hands and drop "pancakes" - one on top of the other. That's how you build your tower!



Here's Alexandra with her little shovel and pail. I borrowed a big shovel to start our sandcastle. Oh, and we mixed in seaweed with the sand to make it stronger!

Alexandra and I went with some friends, Mrs R and her daughter HorseRider. The girls and I built the center tower in this photo, and that's almost all we did. Then, the girls were off to play in the water! Mrs R added the balls to each tower. I carved the door and I think we both helped carve the sides of the tower. (You use things like kitchen knives to carve!) Then, I added the stairs.

Mrs R really enjoyed herself and carved this neat face on the side of our castle. She worked for several hours on our castle. I walked around talking to the moms and looking at all of the neat critters the kids were finding - fish, shrimp, even a live clam!

Here's a photo of Alexandra playing in the water.

And, this is a castle that a family spent several hours building. The dad really got into this and had a lot of fun. I think he has a new hobby!

Unfortunately, I was afraid of ruining my camera so I took my daughter's instead (since it would be cheaper to replace). Well, for some reason, it wouldn't take any photos! (Though it is working fine now.) So, I've gotten some photos from my friends -but they emailed them and they are smaller than usual. I hope to get some full-sized photos soon.

Nature Day at Meyer Park

Last Friday, we had our monthly Nature Day. It was a beautiful day in the mid-70's. We had a small group, but a lot of fun and interesting discoveries!

I've posted about our local nutria before, but we enjoyed feeding them on this beautiful day. Note the orange teeth, bare tail, fingers, and webbed hind feet.

This is what greeted us - lots of nutria, ducks and geese! I've never seen the nutria being so "friendly" before.

There were 5 baby nutria! They were so cute! I guess he's kind of hard to see in this small photo, but he's near the bottom of the picture a little to the right.


Here's a sign they've posted about nutria in the park. It says:

The nutria is a large rodent that lives near water. It is native to South America, but was introduced into many parts of Europe and North America to be raised for their fur. Nutrias have brown fur with a somewhat white tipped muzzle, orange teeth, small ears, webbed hind feet, and a long, hairy tail. They areabout 14" long from the nose to the start of the tail. The tail is 12" to 17" long. Nutria can weigh up to 20 lbs. and live along the banks of lakes, marshes, ponds, and rivers and are very good swimmers. They are herbivores with large appetites and usually have a negative impact on other species because they often over harvest edible plants. A male will live in a den with two or three females and their offspring.

I saw some vultures sitting in a tree by the water. As we got closer to where they'd been, we saw this nutria (I believe) skeleton! (The skull is on the lower right) I know some of you might think this is disgusting - sorry! I just thought it was neat that it was picked "clean" but that the fur was lying around it. Vultures play such an important role in cleaning up the environment.

Isn't this beautiful??? It's a hornworm and will become a Sphinx moth. It was BIG!

Lots of palmettos (something I couldn't identify before!)

Turkey Tail Fungus

Very camouflaged stink bug! I wouldn't have seen him, but I saw him land and "ran" over to the tree to take some photos.

So, that was our nature day. What have you been doing outdoors this fall?

More from Kleb Woods

I forgot to add a few photos from our Nature Day! So, here they are...

I found this pair of tree frogs on the outside of the nature center. Aren't they cute? And, they were so small! The larger one might have been 2 inches long. I think it's another photo that is begging for a caption, but I don't think I'll run a contest. If you'd like to leave a caption, just leave a comment!

A milkweed bug... I was proud of Alexandra for finding this one (and then we found quite a few more) and identifying it for everyone!

And, a velvet ant. I've only seen a few of these in my LIFE! So, I was excited when the kids found this on the path. One of the moms told us how this is a wingless, female wasp. (The males of this species can fly!) They are known for their extremely painful sting and also go by the name "cow killer" - because the pain could "kill a cow."

Nature Day: Kleb Woods Nature Preserve

We had our first nature day of the year on Friday. We had planned a BIG trip to Galveston, complete with instruction from a sand castle builder! But, Hurricane Ike had other plans. So, we took our first trip to Kleb Woods Nature Preserve. It was a great day with great weather.... but also lots of mosquitos.

This was one of our neatest "finds" - a nest of wasps! When I got home, I saw the zoom on my camera (as usual) had captured more than I could see with my eye. First of all, I thought the coloring on these wasps was beautiful! Then, I started some research to find out what kind of wasps we'd found. These are paper wasps. And, a neat thing about them is they don't cover the cells until the last stage of their metamorphosis. So, in this photo you can see some eggs (I see a few in cells on the left) and some larvae and some capped cells and some that have already been "busted" open. Paper wasps usually won't attack unless their nest is disturbed.

An unknown type of wasp on some goldenrod.

A gall... I love galls!

Cypress knees in a duckweed covered swamp.

A pair of grasshoppers - the kids said this is a mommy carrying her baby. :-) We weren't sure what kind of nut they were sitting on, but after some investigation we found out it was a pecan.

Just a neat looking tree - a vine was growing around this tree and the tree had "covered" it with it's own bark. I know it must be bad for the tree, but I thought it looked neat.

This was the picture I didn't get... there were several hundred carpenter ants living in this split-open tree. It was an amazing amount of activity. But, I never got a great shot of the ants. If you enlarge this, you might see some slightly blurry ants.

This was my other favorite "find." I actually found this outside while everyone else was still in the nature center. I took some photos and looked it up when I got home.

It is called a cuckoo wasp. They are often metallic blue in color. They are a solitary wasp and the females lay their eggs in other wasp's nests. This cuckoo wasp was on the same porch as the paper wasps.

Anyway, we had fun and it was so nice to be back on a nature day! I love watching these amazing creatures, photographing them, and learning more about them.