We got our 7yo daughter a hummingbird feeder for her birthday this year. We finally got around to getting it up about a week ago. We were able to place it about a foot away from our living room window which is nice and low. All the kids can easily see it. It has been so fun enjoying watching the hummingbirds visit!
I wasn't sure if they'd find it right away, but within an hour we had birds visiting. They're ruby-throated hummingbirds. The males have the red on them and the females are all green with white on their breasts/throats. When they're getting ready to fly up to the feeder, they sit on our garden fence. Sometimes we see them chasing each other off as well.
Here are some pics I took of the birds. How neat it has been to enjoy these amazing creatures that God made!
Male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird Female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Today it was around 70 and sunny and just beautiful. My older 2 kids (8 & 6yo) and I went on a nature walk in the afternoon. We've had a ton of rain lately so it was so nice to see the sun and enjoy the warm weather! We first decided to follow the run-off that goes through our back yard. Normally there's not water in it but with all the rain we've had lately, there was rain there. We followed it as it crossed over the road 2 times and headed towards the river that is near here. The kids thought it was great fun to see where it would dump out into the river.
As we walked along we enjoyed looking at all the mushrooms along the way. We found some pretty beautiful and large mushrooms. We brought our paper and colored pencils and all drew some of them for our nature journal. We also brought our camera along to take some pics which I posted on my nature blog here.
In following the run-off we found a new great place to get down by the river. It was a beautiful spot with a small island just off the shore and the trees changing colors. We also saw a big mound of dirt in one spot that must have been an anthill of some kind. There were lots of pine needles sprinkled on top. We got bit by a couple of ants so we didn't stay there too long!
All in all it was a wonderful, productive walk in God's beautiful, incredible creation!
If you or your kids are into nature and nature study and are looking for some great chapter books along the nature theme, check out any of the books by Sam Campbell. Sam Campbell was born in 1895 and lived his adult, writing days in Northern WI on an island "sanctuary". During the winter he traveled around giving lectures on nature. He wrote most of his books from his sanctuary where he lived.
His books center around him and his wife Giny and the animals that they cared for. They often took in animals with injuries or orphaned animals. Though the books are fiction, they are influenced by real events. His books are very well-written with great vocabulary. Sam Campbel did believe in God and wrote from this perspective. He may have leaned a bit towards seeing nature as a perfect example for us and conserving nature. HIs books are great for learning about animals and seeing them in a different light. There are some hilarious stories about the animals they cared for and great stories with other people - especially some great children as he loved children though didn't have any himself. These books have been enjoyed by my young children but are also written with enough philosophy and ideas to think about that they're great for adults as well. We have some of these books at our library, so check and see if you have them if you're looking for some great books!
This year I decided to try to see the meteor showers that are most visible every August. I went out a couple of evenings late at night before I went to bed to look for them the evenings before. One night I saw really bright streak that traveled a LONG ways and the streak from it was visible for around 10 seconds afterwards! That one was really neat!
Last night I decided to set my alarm for 4:00 this morning to see if my oldest 2 kids and I could see some good meteor showers. The weather was quite cool - probably close to the 40's. I dressed warm and got up at 4:00 to check it out before waking the kids just in case there weren't very many for us to see. Thankfully we have a great viewing spot on our deck of our house since we don't have trees around. I checked it out and found that they were streaking about 2 per minute so I decided to wake them up.
They woke up fairly easily and dressed into some warm clothes and I brought some warm blankets out. We sat out there on a table and I let them lie their heads down on my lap so they could see the sky better as they were most visible high in the sky. For the first 5-10 minutes we saw quite a few flashes of light and then they seemed to die out quite a bit. Both of the kids enjoyed it quite a bit and it was neat looking up at all the stars with their 2 heads on my lap and their enthusiastic comments. We also saw several satellites traveling across the sky.
After about 10 minutes the sky was beginning to lighten already for the new day so we went to bed. I know they're probably still out there some, but tonight it's rainy so we probably couldn't see them tonight and it seems kind of anti-climactic to go out again sometime but we'll see if the kids ask to try to see some more one of these days soon. It makes me interested in studying the constellations and astronomy a little more with the kids! We'll see if I decide to fit that in sometime. Maybe next summer we can do a little unit study on it!
On the 4th of July we went to a beach on Lake Superior where there was a tide pool type of area. The kids had a blast catching tadpoles there. We brought a bucketful home to raise to frogs. We have tried this in the past but have been unsuccessful. We were hopeful since these were already a bit older that we might have success. Here's some of the tadpoles in an ice cream bucket a day or two after we got them. You can tell that they're getting their legs.
After a couple of days we got a 5-gallon bucket full of water from Lake Superior when we were over there and got out our 20-gallon fish tank and put the water in it. We then added some rocks to it and an air bubbler to add oxygen to the water and put the tadpoles in. They have done great in there! By Sunday there were a couple with front legs but they still had a tail on them. By the next day those with the front legs from the day before had lost almost all their tails except for a little bump. Every day since then we've had more of them become frogs! We need to get the frogs released since they will be needing different food. It's so interesting watching them swim around and come out onto the rocks. Here are some pics I took of them.
Our family LOVES nature! We love identifying the plants and animals around us, keeping pets from nature, doing nature notebooks and other nature activities! Do you relate?
If you are interested in sharing your nature discoveries or learning more about how to do nature study, join my nature discoveries yahoogroup. I hope to share observations about nature, tips for studying nature, and stories about things we've seen. We can also help with identifying things we discover.
If you join, I will send you my article on developing a love for nature in your children. In it I explain the key things that have helped us to study nature.
To join, just enter your e-mail in the nature discoveries yahoogroup on my sidebar and follow the instructions to join us!
God bless us as we study God's world and inspire each other!
We've been raising monarch caterpillars the past few weeks. We get them as tiny caterpillars and feed them milkweed. When they're big, they hang on our butterfly cage and make their chrysalises. After 7-10 days they emerge as beautiful butterflies and we set them free! It's amazing to watch the transformation and reminds me of 2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! .. This is sure true of these butterflies as we watch them change from caterpillars to butterflies with wings to fly! May we fly as a butterfly as new creations in Christ!
Here's some pics from our experiences!
The last 3 of the four stages of a monarch in one pic!
Lots of chrysalises with my ds peering in to look at them in the background
We went on a great walk this morning. The weather was beautiful - not too hot, beautiful sunshine, slight breeze...
We first went to feed the goats that live nearby (we give them grass). Then we went down a trail that goes to a bridge over the river near our house. I brought my camera and took some pics of the wildflowers along the way. There were tons of these tiny butterflies out all over the place! I haven't figured out what they are yet. They were swarming the flowers everywhere! They're also in our yard all over the clover that is blooming. Here are some pics from our walk.
My dd checking out the wildflowers
Bee drinking from an Orange Hawkweed plant
We came to an area with tons of these orange hawkweed plants. In reading about them online, unfortunately they're considered an invasive species, but I think they're beautiful! The bees and butterflies sure loved them. Here's a pic of 4 butterflies on one bunch of flowers!
We also saw some common yarrow just starting to bloom.
And some yellow hawkweed
I will sure miss this when winter comes again! We need to take advantage of each of these beautiful days!
Last summer my husband got two cecropia moth caterpillars from the bushes near his work. We put them in our butterfly cage to see if we could get them to make their cocoons. Not too many days later, they were in cocoons! These caterpillars are huge!
After spinning a cocoon, they overwinter in this state and then emerge in late May or early June. We also found one of these cocoons out hiking in late winter and put the stick it was on in our butterfly cage.
A few weeks ago, the one that we had found as a cocoon emerged. It ended up having its wings get battered in the wind but it was a female and it attracted a mate by the scent it sends out. We found them mating and put them in our cage.
About a day later we had probably around 100 cecropia moth eggs in our cage! About 10 days later they hatched so we've been raising cecropia caterpillars. They eat both lilacs and apple tree leaves. They have changed from being all black to yellow and black. It's really cool to watch them!
Our latest excitement was that one of the caterpillars that we had found last summer emerged just last Saturday from it's cocoon! We had kind of given up on them emerging, but we came home to find a moth sitting there! We set it free and for some odd reason a couple days later we found it had laid eggs on our trellis by our deck. So we may be rescuing more caterpillars and putting them on a host plant!
If you ever get a chance to raise caterpillars, it's a WONDERFUL thing to do! We raise monarch caterpillars each summer as well. Maybe I'll do some pics of them sometime. They're very easy and fun to raise! We currently have about 10 monarch caterpillars of different size that we're feeding and raising! How fun for the kids to observe the amazing creatures that God has made!
Today we went on a nature walk in the morning. I was able to leave the baby home with dh which was a rare thing! It would have gone fine without her, but it was a little more relaxing without her on my back!
We first went up to feed the goats and sheep that are on the edge of town that someone owns. They don't care if we go visit them and feed them grass, so the kids really enjoy that! Then we hiked down an old railroad bed trail for quite a ways. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed checking the milkweed for caterpillars, catching butterflies and a damselfly, and taking pics of flowers while we walked.
Then we walked down towards the river and decided to check out this great big tree that I had thought would be a great climbing tree.
It turned out to be a wonderful tree that all except the 2 year-old could climb easily. The kids enjoyed climbing for quite a while before we headed home. What a wonderful day enjoying God's creation! Here are a few more pics.
Male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Our 2yo broke sticks instead of climbing
