Memorial Weekend Canoe and Hike

We visited Umstead State Park over Memorial weekend. It was truly a lovely day. It did rain for about 15 minutes and then it was blue skies and gorgeous scenery.

We canoed around BIg Lake for a bit. I have to tell you that after years of kayaking, the canoe really felt unstable! It was still fun looking at fish and listening to the tree frogs. I couldn't get over how calm and peaceful it was, especially since it was a holiday weekend.

We also did a bit of hiking and exploring. One of the coolest things we found was a brown snake that was hiding in the rocks by the creek.

Unfortunately, the snake was musking and left Daddy smelling very stinky.

Wordless Wednesday: Nature Walk Discoveries

Junior Bluebird Monitors

Wednesday, we went to Harris Lake for their Junior Bluebird Monitoring program. What fun. I can't believe we were the only family to do it. The ranger was fun and had a lot of interesting activities for them to do.


One of the activities she did was throw multi-colored pasta all around the ground and the kids had to fill each egg carton mouth so many pieces of pasta in a short period of time to see what it is like to feed baby birds.

We hiked around the park and monitored the bluebird boxes. Some were empty and some had old nests. The kids learned that you approach from the side and knock first so birds can fly out. We had a nuthatch fly out of our first box! Then we looked in the boxes and determined what bird had a nest there. Just because it's a bluebird box doesn't mean a bluebird will be the bird to choose it. Our boxes had bluebirds, nuthatches and wrens! The ranger said she found a snake in a box once.
We had to learn a lot about nests. Some birds make shallow nests and some deep nests. Some use mud and some don't. Because different birds have the same color and size eggs and you don't always see the parent bird, you have to know your nests.

Composting with worms

The kids took a class on composting with worms through the Centennial Campus for Wildlife Education. What a wonderful class. The instructers were energetic and engaging. The class moved quickly and kept the attention span of all the kids. Best of all, it was free! We all learned a lot.


The kids dissected a worm in pairs. After doing the shark, my kids are "pros" at dissection and they did not get grossed out by the smell or the cutting. Each one did the actual dissecting in their pairing.

After opening up the worm and pinning, they learned about the different parts of the worm and their functions.

After dissecting worms, they went out and dug for worms in the woods. They found lots and lots of worms and a few other creepy crawlies too.

They also made their own mini compost bins. First you make a bin by drilling holes in a container. Then you tear some paper and wet it and fill the bin with it. Then you add some worms.

You then feed the worms with veggie and fruit cuttings and egg shells. Harrison insisted on carrots at dinner so he could feed his worms the shavings. They made a small bin at the class but we plan to make a bigger one for our family. Here are directions for anyone interested: http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=445#plastic

Bird Banding

Today we went on another field trip to Prairie Ridge Ecostation. The kids got to follow the museum's scientist around to check the bird nets. They put nets out in various places and when birds get caught in them, they take them out and attach a band to the leg.

We checked four nets and found one bird, this female summer tanager. It took awhile to loosen her from the net and I donated my water bottle to feed her. I dipped my finger in the bottle and dropped in her mouth. Once she had some water, we put her in a canvas bag, to help calm her as well as for ease of transportation. The nets were rolled up for rest of day and we took bird back to banding station. At the station, the bird was identified, weighed, measured, banded, and logged and then set free.

Pond Study

We spent a lovely afternoon at the Prairie Ridge eco-station doing a pond study. The weather was glorious compared to last week's e-bird outing.

The kids used nets of various sizes to collect pond samples. They just loved sweeping the pond.

After gathering up the matter, it was time to study it. We sifted and sorted and looked at assorted creatures under the magnifying lens.

We found numerous tadpoles.

And several dragonfly nymphs (as well as mites and a red-eyed backswimmer).

E-Bird

This semester, we are focusing on birds for our nature studies. We've been reading the Burgess Bird book and several books by Arthur Scott Bailey. We've kept chickens and studied them. We've made a bird feeder and have been keeping a list of birds we see in our nature journals. Now, we are ready to go up a notch!

Tuesday, we went to Prairie Ridge Ecostation to count birds with a naturalist. We learned some birds songs and how to identify some birds. We found new birds to add to our list. After an hour of walking around the preserve, we had identified 13 species. That's not to bad considering it was 48 degrees with 20 mph winds. Harrison was first to spot the Carolina chickadee and Melissa found the turkey vultures and mourning doves. I found a scarlet tanager and a downy woodpecker. We also saw a tufted titmouse, an American goldfinch, a white breasted nuthatch, several house finches and white throated sparrows, an eastern towhee and lots of cardinals and robins.

After our mini expedition, we entered the data into E-bird. E-bird is a citizen science project created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. Here you can input the kinds and numbers of birds you observed. It can be from a long walk at a preserve, a hike on nature trail, or just what birds you see from your window at home. Scientists then use that data to observe migration patterns, distribution patterns, etc.

In e-bird, you can pull up maps of recent sitings of various birds, look at the migration habits of birds to see when you are most likely to see a bird. We had a lot of fun exploring the various graphs and charts available.

*Photo by Thomas O'Neill

Saturday at the Pond, an Impromptu Adventure

My husband had softball at a park that we've never visited in the nine years that we've lived in this city. We were not sure what adventures would wait us.........

The park did not have a playground but it had a frisbee golf course. None of us had ever actually seen frisbee golf before so we watched a few rounds. Harrison was able to play a few rounds. (Yes, we walked up to total strangers and asked what to do LOL)

We found a pond and the kids gathered sticks to make a shelter in case the rain came again. Harrison was testing the depth of the pond with one of the sticks. It had a deep drop off a few feet in.

They spent a good portion of the afternoon hunting for tadpoles. Melissa's friend caught one but dropped in.

We topped the afternoon off with a trip to get ice cream and ate it outside under the umbrella table in the pouring rain.