Recently in Science Category

We often have flocks of White Ibises in my neighborhood.

Sometimes they are startled by a passing car.

Then, they fly on to another yard.

Someone on Flickr asked if the Wax Paper Leaves were really that simple. Here is my reply:

Yes, it's so simple...even I can do it. :) Put the wax paper between two kitchen towels (not the terry cloth kind, the other kind) and set your iron on medium/dry. I think pressed leaves would work best, but we used leaves fresh off the trees and they were fine. Hanging them in the window gave us a great view to study the leaves. Have fun.

I hope any of ya'll who have not tried this craft before will go for it. It's very easy and diverting. (I looked that up in the thesaurus.)

Sunday was the first day since Spring cool enough to bike ride the local trail. Even still, the humidity was very high and the temperature in the eighties. This is South Florida, you know.

After a filling of tires and a fiddling with brakes, we slowly and hesitantly began our ride. The first ride of the season goes often awry (at least, it does with our little gang of riders), but we muddled along.

This ride was unlike previous ones because I brought along my camera. This, you may not realize, was a bit of a dance with danger. There is always the chance I may wipe out; I am, after all, a person whose missteps periodically prostrate me into humbleness. On Sunday, however, the desire to photograph Nature's loveliness won out over my usual solicitousness. I'm glad it did because we saw several lovely things on the trail.

Our county provides water stations along the trail and at one of those was a clearing where I spotted this decaying stump with fungi. I can't help myself; I am becoming fascinated by molds and fungi. I must get a good fungi guide soon because I am tired of being unable to identify all the mushrooms and such I come across. This stump was as tall as I, but covered in fungi. I would have gotten a closer look, but the ground was covered in plants and it would be just my luck to unknowingly step in poison ivy. I've never done that and am not interested in trying it.

In the same clearing, we found hundreds of bunches of purple berries.

At home, I was able to identify them as American Beautyberry - Callicarpa Americana. Beautiful, but has the same irritating scent of its cousin, Shrub Verbena, also known as Lantana.

Callicarpa is Greek for "beautiful fruit," however they are not tasty berries. They are an emergency food source for birds and deer, saved for consumption in the coldest times when nothing else can be found. This is because the berries are very tart. Callicarpa is apparently effective in repelling mosquitoes and ticks. If only I wasn't allergic to it, I would surround my house with these plants.

On the way home, we passed a Wood Stork fishing in a pond.

We paused to watch him use one foot to stand and the other to stir up the water and pond bottom. Then, he would snap up any fish visible in the murkiness.

Here he has just drawn his foot out of the water and is going for his dinner. Can you see his foot? It's real ugly - as ugly as homemade sin. That's your southern phrase for the day and, no, I have no idea what store-bought sin looks like, but I'm pretty sure you can find it at the mall.

And that was the end of our first Fall bike ride. No one perished and it only took me three days to recover. Hooray!

We are studying Carolus Linnaeus and Taxonomy right now, so I made this:

This will be very helpful in learning about Carolus Linnaeus and Linnaean Taxonomy. It includes a mnemonic for memorizing the correct taxonomic order. There is also a chart which will give my military-loving children a better understanding of how taxonomy works. The small pieces will give the children a chance to practice the taxonomic order and then they can check their work against the chart.

I make many such puzzles (as we call them) for our homeschooling. This one, like the others, is printed on cardstock and covered with Contact paper. I like to keep each puzzle in one of these:

You can make your own Taxonomy puzzle with my Taxonomy.pdf.

Online books:

Handbook of Nature Study (pages 320-441)

The Life-Story of Insects

An Elementary Study of Insects

Our Common Insects

The Insect Folk

Websites:

BugGuide

What's That Bug?

Florida 4-H Bugclub

eNature: Insect Fieldguide

H and I were hanging blinds and it was peaceful inside the family room. Suddenly, I noticed a battle was raging on the other side of the glass. For over fifteen minutes, we were riveted.

A beetle was caught in a web and two spiders were working tag-team, trying to hang on to him and make him into a nice beetle milkshake.

Many times we thought the spiders were going to win, but in the end the beetle slipped away.

Then, it was back to work hanging the blinds.

Looks like Gustav is heading to Louisiana. Bobby Jindal, do us proud. I'd feel a lot better, though, if Ray Nagin, the King of "Chocolate City", wasn't still running the show in New Orleans. I'm praying for all ya'll in the Gulf, including my favorite Cajun blogger. I've also got one eye on Hanna.

When hurricanes come, I always think of the Breton fisherman's prayer I read in my childhood:

Dear God, be good to me;
The sea is so wide,
And my boat is so small.

Despite appearances, these are not red potatoes in my yard.

They are mushrooms. These photos were taken from opposite sides of the red and yellow pair.

Next to them was this little fellow with its top askew:

I don't know what kind of mushrooms these are. I haven't found a very helpful fungi guide. Anyone know of one?

S was riding his bike out front this morning when he came upon an animal crossing the road. He hastily rescued it from a car and bolted in the front door. "Mama, I found a turtle," he exclaimed.

"Can I keep it?"

Years ago, when the kids were little, we purchased two baby turtles from the flea market. D was entrenched in all things Robin Hood at the time, so we named the turtles Robin Hood and Little John. To our amazement, Robin Hood and Little John quickly grew larger than dinner plates. We ended up giving them away to live happy lives in a country pond. We also found out that the turtles were both females. Robin Hood and Little Jane, I suppose?

A quick phone conference with Daddy and it was decided that this turtle, this wild turtle with his damaged shell, needed to be released at the neighborhood pond.

Several photos and a nearly-tearful goodbye later, the kids tramped down to the pond and set him free.