Afternoon Walk - Birds and Thistles

We took a nice long walk in the warm afternoon sunshine...sort of on a quest to see thistles and also just to enjoy the last of the predicted sunny afternoons.

Our first bird sound and flash of color came with the Red-Winged Blackbird's call. Take a look at this video to see and hear this beautiful bird. The walking trail is right along a little wetland area, creek mostly but a few small ponds. These birds are year-round residents here in our world and an easy beginner's bird to learn by their call by ear.



We had a mystery bird fly across the trail...looked like a California quail but much larger and with more orange. Yes, orange underneath. I looked it up in my field guide and guess what? A new bird for my local life list! It was a Mountain Quail!  It doesn't get much better than that for this bird lover...a great walk and a new bird for our area. (We have seen Mountain Quail at Yosemite in the past.)


Here is my walking companion...my Kona dog. She is so patient with me when I stop and take photos of plants, butterflies, and birds. She just sits and waits so nicely with that big pink tongue hanging out while I try to get just the right image.



Here is a sneak peek at our thistle study. We did find some Bull Thistle all dried up along the trail...it is so very prickly that I couldn't pick a thistle head to bring home to study. I was able to pull a few fluffy seeds out though and that is what we will observe closely next week as part of the up-coming thistle study.


I came home and pulled up my North American Birds notebooking page set from Notebookingpages.com and printed off a page for the Red-Winged Blackbird. I remembered I had done a Mountain Quail page when I was at Yosemite a few years ago so I pulled it out and updated it with this sighting. (So don't laugh at his long skinny legs...birds are hard to draw!)

We are really enjoying the last warm days of our autumn weather, getting outside just a few minutes each day.




The notebook page shown in this entry is NOT in the set from NotebookingPages.com. This set is like this one: Hermit Thrush. The page shown above comes with the Getting Started with the Outdoor Hour Challenge ebook.

George the Dog

Put money in my hat. If you try and take it out I'll probably get rather cross.

Fields of Mustard - Cheerful February Scene

I was driving on a back road yesterday and found this sea of yellow field mustard all in bloom! It made me smile so I had to go home and get my camera to capture the showy display of yellow. This was an orchard of apples but a few years ago they took down the trees and now it has come alive with mustard. I realize this is another of our county's invasive species but it sure is pretty.


I am in awe of just how beautiful this scene sparkles on this February day.

We took the opportunity to take a family hike in the sunshine and it was fairly uneventful. All three of my sons accompanying my husband and I for a hike down in the canyon. Kona dog came too and she was eager to explore.



Kona was wild on this hike so she had to sit for a minute in a little doggy "time out". She brought home some ticks a few times in the past week so I am trying to keep her in the middle of the trail and then check her when we get back to the car. She has other ideas....her nose is just so curious.

I know much of our nation is still deep into winter cold and winter weather but here in our part of the world it is sunny and warm in the afternoons. I hope my images cheer you up!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Autumn 2010 OHC #3: Horses

Autumn Series #3
Mammal Study: Horse

Inside Preparation Work:
1. Read pages 274-280 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 67). Please note that this section has references to evolution and preview for appropriateness for your family. (Alternate book selection: Album of Horses by Marguerite Henry.) Choose a few of the suggestions from Lesson 67 to focus on when you have your Outdoor Hour time observing horses.
2. Anna Botsford Comstock suggests reading an introductory story about wild horses. She lists The Pacing Mustang from Wild Animals I Have Known. I found this online for you: The Pacing Mustang

Ideas for Comparing a Horse and a Dog (or other mammal)
Please see Autumn Challenge #2 for more explanation about comparing and contrasting as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. 
• Compare the head and neck.
• Compare the length of the legs and how they walk. How many toes are there?
• Compare the coats.
• Compare the teeth if you are able to see the horse’s teeth.
• Compare the placement and the shape of the ears.
• Compare the tails and how they are used.

Outdoor Hour Time:
Use you Outdoor Hour time to observe a horse or other mammal. This time of year many families visit farms to pick apples or pumpkins and the farm may also have a horse to observe. Look for horses as you drive your normal route through your local area. You may be surprised to spy a horse to observe, even from a fence line. You will be successful with this challenge if you do the preparation work and then use your time to observe any mammal up close. Keep in mind the suggestions from the lesson for observation as well as the comparison ideas above.

If you do not find a horse to observe, you can by all means observe another mammal and look it up in the Handbook of Nature Study. Try to compare whatever mammal you observe to another mammal, gaining some practice at your observation skills.

Follow-Up Activity:
Discuss your mammal observations and then make a journal entry. You can use the horse notebook page that accompanies the Autumn ebook or a blank page in your nature journal. If you observed another mammal, you can use this free mammal notebook page from a previous challenge.

Links for horse related information:

Horse Anatomy Printable

Horse Coloring Pages to Print

Don't forget to enter the special Backyard Birds DVD giveaway! See this entry for more details.

Queenies Walk

When you're getting on a bit you need transport to get you to your exercise park. Just wish mum wouldn't chat to everyone on the way.

Ralph

Ralph doesn't muck around with little sticks or balls, no he's out to be noticed and please his dad. Just don't get in his way, he hasn't quite got to grips with how wide this thing is.

Spot the odd one out

One is different to the others which one is it?

Answer: The man with the blue tie. His mobile is in his left hand.

Ha and you were busy looking at the dogs weren't you.

Dogs and their owners

Elegant women have small dogs, street people have large dogs, farmers have working dogs. What have you noticed about dogs and their owners?

Where 'd go?

Chasing waves along the banks of the Thames. Yes waves. The Thames is a tidal river that rises and falls some 8 metres twice a day.

Going to the Dogs

Greyhound racing has both supporters and opponents with equally strong views. The animal activists who believe it to be cruel and inhumane. The fans, owners and supporters who argue that it is a sport like any other with stringent regulations.
Whatever side of the fence you are on, the reality is the sport is declining. Not just in the UK but worldwide.
Here is an interesting article from the Guardian late last year on the status of the industry.

Dog Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge-Mammals

Our Lovable Labrador...Kona.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #51 took us some time to complete for some reason. The boys didn't think that they needed to learn much about our dog but after we got going, we really enjoyed some of the ideas that Anna Botsford Comstock suggested in the accompanying lesson.

We watched the PBS video on wolves in Yellowstone and we were so interested to see how the circle of life goes round and round even within one national park. I think someone else mentioned that they had a hard time knowing which side to be on when you saw a skirmish. I totally agree with that.....like with the wolves, the elk, and the coyotes. Each one had its family and its physical needs and without eating each other, none would survive. It gave us lots to think about.

Now to our crazy dog study....my boys were so funny working through the lesson on dogs in the Handbook of Nature Study. I couldn't believe how much they could answer without even getting up and looking at the dog or the cat. The comparison between the two in the lesson ideas worked out great because it made us stop and really think about the differences between canines and felines.



Sleeping dogs are great to take photos of since they don't move around. She really doesn't like us to take photos of her very much and trying to get photos of her body parts was impossible. I felt like we needed to wrestle her to the ground but my son decided that having a little "scooby snack" in his hand did the trick.


I think I shared this photo before but this is a priceless photo of our dog showing her teeth. I don't remember exactly what we were doing that made her give us a "smile" but it makes me laugh every time I see this picture.

Her ears are also very expressive in real life and we can tell if she is listening by the way she has them positioned. Sometimes when she runs her ears turn inside out and it looks so cute.


Even though we didn't have much success getting photos, we did have a great time examining the things that the Handbook of Nature Study suggested we look at during a good dog study. Kona uses her nose to sniff just about everything when we go for our walk and we have even named one spot on the trail "Smelly Rocks" because she can't bear to pass by without giving them a good sniff. There is also one particular bush alongside the path that gets her interest every time as well. This photo is sort of a "all the better to smell you with" kind of photo.....her nose looks really long and her nostrils very large.

If you haven't completed this particular Outdoor Hour Challenge yet, I encourage you to do so with your own dog. You will learn a lot!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #51 Mammals-Wolf, Fox, and Dog

Once again we are skipping several stories in the Burgess Book of Animals for Children. Please read them when you have time to fit them into your school week.

You are in for a treat with this challenge with an episode from PBS Nature to watch if you choose to do so. I am strongly recommending that you preview this episode. I tried to note what might be objectionable in each part. Even with all these warnings, I truly think this is an amazing episode. There is so much about winter in Yellowstone and so many mammals in their natural setting. The photography of Yellowstone in this episode is fantastic and it made me want to plan a trip to this beautiful spot in the near future.

PBS Nature In the Valley of the Wolves (Set In Yellowstone National Park)

• Part one shows the wolves hunting and then killing an elk-tastefully done but still it might be upsetting to sensitive children. Includes a red fox and coyotes as well. Shows a coyote eating a vole.
  
• Part two is all about breeding season so you will want to preview for appropriateness for your family. There is also a dead elk scene where the coyotes and an eagle are eating.
• Part three has two wolf packs fighting. Dead elk being eaten in this part as well. Wolves chase and eat the coyote....it made me cry. River otters and eagles. Red fox and a coyote are shown hunting and then eating some sort of rodents. Bison being eaten by the wolves and birds.
• Part four has a grizzly bear and cubs. Another elk being hunted and killed by wolves and eaten by the grizzly.Lots of baby animal stories in this part.
• Part five opens up with coyotes eating an elk, blood. Very sad end to the wolf pups...made me tear up. Magnificent elk shots.
  

Outdoor Hour Challenge #51
Mammals: Wolf, Fox, and Dog

1. Read pages 250-260 of the Handbook of Nature Study about the wolf, the fox, and the dog. Studying the dog will help your child get a better understanding of the wolf and the fox. Not many of us will ever study a fox or a wolf up close but we can study the dog with great ease. After reading these pages in the Handbook, have a few ideas to share with your children. Use the dog as your point of comparison when talking about fur, teeth, and paws.

2. This week’s challenge includes two opportunities for observation:
*Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors on a nature walk. If you have snow or mud, look for animal tracks. Use this time to discuss why mammals, especially the wolf, fox, and dog have fur or hair. Look for any signs of animals as you walk around your own yard or down your own street. Ask your children where they think they might see a mammal. Don’t forget that you can also observe other mammals such as cats and squirrels if you have the opportunity. A dog’s tracks are easily recognizable and once you know what to look for, you will start to see them everywhere.

*If you have a pet dog, use the activities on pages 258-260 to learn more about your own dog. Many of the activities assume you have access to a cat to compare to the dog but you can skip to number 6 if you do not have a cat to study alongside the dog.

3. Supplemental reading: The Burgess Animal Book for Children: Read Story 27 and 28. Use the illustrations on pages 164, 170, and 177 to prompt some simple narrations from your child about the wolf, the fox, and the dog.

4. For your nature journal you can sketch the parts of the dog that you studied during your observation time. The teeth, the ears, and the paws make great subjects for the nature journal. If you did not study a dog, you can complete a notebook page for any or all of the challenges subjects: the wolf, the fox, or the dog. See the additional resources below for information and photos. Another suggestion is to make several entries for different breeds of dogs that you know or are interested in learning about for this challenge.


Additional resources for this challenge:
Dog notebook pages from Enchanted Learning

Fox mini book printable
Fox coloring page
Fox coloring page
Red fox information
Gray fox information

Wolf information page
Red Wolf-more information
Gray wolf notebook page
Another page on wolves
Awesome Red Wolf coloring pages!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Thanks to Tina at Jetihoja Academy for the special mammal challenge notebook page. You can find it along with all the other notebook pages here:
Outdoor Hour Challenge Notebooking pages
Thanks Tina!

Looking for Mammal Prints and A New Bird

We have had our eye out for critter prints but the only one we have seen that has been clear enough to really recognize is this dog print along our walking trail. We are not giving up though, the winter is still young.

From the Handbook of Nature Study, page 254:
"The dog's feet are much more heavily padded than those of the cat, because in running he must not stop to save his feet. Hounds often return from a chase with bleeding feet, despite the heavy pads, but the wounds are usually cuts between the toes. The claws are heavy and are not retractile; thus, they afford a protection to the feet when running, and they are also used for digging out game which burrows into the ground. They are not used for grasping prey like those of the cat and are used only incidentally in fighting, while the cat's claws are the most important weapons in her armory."

The Handbook of Nature Study has many suggestions for observations of dogs. The section starts on page 254 and ends on page 260.

The most exciting news is that our birdfeeders have been very busy. We even identified a new bird. It was the Cassin's finch. It looks very much like the purple finch but the coloring on the head is much more pronounced. I also found a great new bird identification site that not only is an online field guide, it also has a button to hear the bird songs online. Eureka! I have wanted to start to learn to identify birds by their songs so this is perfect.

Whatbird.com

Click on the image to make it larger!

Have you ever seen a guard llama? We were out on a new section of our local walking trail and this is the scene that we observed. My son told me that he had seen on a nature show that a llama will actually guard a herd of sheep. I had never heard of this before so I had to come home and research it. He was right! Here is an article that I found on this subject.
Guard Llamas
You learn something new every day.

There is no information in the Handbook of Nature Study on llamas...not surprised at that. There is a section starting on page 270 that talks about sheep.

From page 273:
"The dog is the ancient enemy of sheep: and even now, after hundreds of years of domestication, some of our dogs will revert to savagery and chase and kill sheep.....The collie, or sheep dog, has been bred so many years as the special caretaker of sheep, that a beautiful relationship has been established between these dogs and their flocks."

Well, that sort of catches you up with our nature study for the past week or two. We are still busy catching up on our drawings in our nature journals for animals we have seen. It is a really good activity for these long, cold afternoons.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom