Another Snake: Kingsnake This Time

(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Were there always this many snakes and we just never noticed them?







I kid you not....yesterday my son and I were were in the car and one block from our house there was a dead snake in the middle of the road.

At first we thought it was a fake snake because it was so colorful. I actually *turned around* and went back so we could get out and look at it. My son was shocked! He could not believe that I was going to actually go back and look at it up close. Well, I looked at it from the car window while he got out and took a photo of it with my phone. It was not in bad shape so it didn't seem weird to take a photo. I really just wanted to go home and make a positive identification using the photo. I will spare you the photo this time. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) The one we saw was much yellower in color than this one in the photo which made it very conspicuous.

It was a kingsnake. It looked like this one: California Kingsnake. Here is a good article: California Kingsnake.

These are good snakes...they eat rattlesnakes.

Okay, so now in less than a week I have seen two of the common snakes from our list of snakes from our snake study. It makes me wonder whether they were always here before and I did not notice them. I have been left in no doubt this week of the value of nature study and learning about what is right in our own neighborhoods.

It is a good thing we are not studying mountain lions.....

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

OHC Spring Series #8: Reptiles-Snakes

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #8 Reptile Study-Snakes

“There are abroad in the land many erroneous beliefs concerning snakes. Most people believe that they are all venomous which is far from true. The rattlesnake still holds its own in rocky, mountainous places, and the moccasin haunts the bayous of the southern coast; however, in most localities, snakes are not only harmless but are beneficial to the farmer.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 193

Inside Preparation Time:
Snakes are a topic that most children are interested in learning more about. Read pages 193-194 in the Handbook of Nature Study. Make sure to highlight perhaps four or five points that you want to relate to your children before you observe a snake. Our local pet shop always has a few snakes available and they are eager to let us take a look and perhaps even hold one or two. Check around and see if you can find a local pet shop or a zoo that has a good reptile display as part of this Outdoor Hour Challenge.

Choose one or two snakes to learn about that you may find in your local area (Lessons 49-51)

• Garter or Garden Snake pages 194-196 (This snake is the most widely distributed snake in North America.)
• Milk Snake or Spotted Adder pages 197-198
• Water Snake pages 198-199
• Various snakes discussed with images pages 200-203

Outdoor Hour Time:
It is rare to observe snakes in the wild. This challenge is more about general knowledge and arming ourselves with some truths about a creature that perhaps we might encounter at some point in our lives.

You have two choices.
1. Take a field trip to a pet shop or zoo to observe a snake in real life. You may also know someone who has a pet snake that would be willing to let you observe their snake. Make sure to complete the inside preparation work before you go so you have some facts about snakes ready to share.
2. Talk about where a snake would live in your local area. You might need to do a little research for your particular state. Spend 15 minutes outdoors playing snake detective carefully looking for signs of snakes. You will be successful even if you just enjoy your backyard and observe anything that your child finds of interest. The most important thing is to get outdoors!

Follow-Up Activity:
Complete a notebook page for any or all of the snakes you researched during your preparation work or you observed up close. You can use the provided notebook page from the Spring Series ebook, a blank nature journal page from the sidebar of my blog, or a blank nature journal. You can look up your snake on the internet and use the image found there to draw your snake for your journal. Make sure to show the colors of your snake as best you can.

Please make sure to come back and post your link on Mr. Linky after completing this challenge and writing your blog entry. I always love to come by and see what you are up to!

If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one place, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the spring months as well as custom notebooking pages for each of the challenges. Please see this entry for more details:

Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Our Fabulous Five

A few weeks ago I wrote about finding something extraordinary in the ordinary as far as things we see in our own backyard and in our own neighborhoods. We have done some follow-up work on our five subjects and I wanted to share a little about what we learned and didn't learn. :)


Morning Glory (Handbook of Nature Study page 519 reference to twining)
We learned that it is closely related to the sweet potato. It is called a morning glory since the blossoms only last one day. It grows in just about any soil, doesn't like too much moisture, and will thrive in full sun.


I love the way the vine curls up the poles and then into the trees.

Alligator Lizard (reference and photo of alligator lizard and fence lizard, Handbook of Nature Study, pages 210-211)
We did some research on our alligator lizard but guess what? We saw an even bigger and more glorious lizard last week.

How is that for a lizard? I love his feet!

I think he might be a Northwestern Fence Lizard which we have had in our backyard before but he also may be a Sierra Fence Lizard. He has lots of color on his back and we have always just called these guys "blue bellies". I am not definite about who exactly he is but still enjoyed observing him with his wonderfully long toes on his feet and his inquisitive eye.

We learned from reading on different websites that lizards can have ticks! That is something we definitely did not know before and for some reason we all found it very interesting.


This is an older journal entry my son did for a lizard we had in the backyard. He incorporated a photo and a sketch. We did some additional research this week on the alligator lizard and found that there are several species that live in our area. Now we are not sure which one we have so during our next encounter we will know more in detail what to look for.

Caterpillar (Handbook of Nature Study -lots of caterpillar info. We used page 299 for a drawing in our nature journal.)

We had no luck with figuring out what kind of caterpillar we saw on the sidewalk under our Sweet Gum tree. You would think that with its bright colors and outstanding horns and markings that we could find it somewhere in our field guide or online. Nope. We will be keeping our eyes open to see if we can observe more about these creatures right outside our back door.

Hummingbirds (Handbook of Nature Study section on hummingbirds starts on page 115)


We were still not able to figure out our dark headed hummingbird from a few weeks ago. We have been watching the feeder but the regular hummers are keeping it busy. Anna's Hummingbirds are very common at our feeders all summer long and then even over the winter. We learned that they are *not* migratory which is really interesting since it gets very cold here in the winter and we even have snow. Where do they live when the weather is bad in the winter? You can be sure we will be keeping our eyes open to answer that question.


We have been working on taking photos of the birds in sports mode and we get much better photos...a tad bit clearer.



After some research and online digging, I think we have identified our migratory black headed hummer as a Black-chinned Hummingbird. I looked at the migratory map on WhatBird.com and it looks like it is highly likely it could be just this bird. Here is more on their migration.

California Towhee


We read some more about this regular to the feeder, or more specifically...under the feeder. They always come in a pair. What is interesting is that the map does not show that we should have these birds but we have them year round in our yard. The other thing that is interesting is that the maps show that we should have Spotted Towhees all year but we don't during the summer. Hmmm....don't know what that means but it is interesting.

We also learned that California Towhees are sometimes called "car birds" since they like to run and hide under parked cars. We have actually witnessed this behavior several times and think it is quite funny. They also will sit on car mirrors and "fight" their own image. We have not seen that behavior but it wouldn't surprise us.

Here is a link for reference on the CA Towhee.

Our Fabulous Five Ordinary Things
That wraps up our fabulous five ordinary things that we looked more closely at from our yard. This was a great exercise and we will be certain to do it again.


Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Gardening Reveals The Beauty of Creation

This bee was making his rounds in the alyssum on the deck yesterday morning. He was a big time hummer and grabbed my attention right away. Make sure to click to enlarge this one so you can see his fuzzy back. Amazing.


This shot captured two with one blow. I know they are not exactly beautiful but still awesome in their design.


Click to enlarge this photo and you will see an amazing egg sac. I have put this in a container on our science shelf to see what will emerge.


Here at last is my new rose. I posted about the gift of the rose from my husband and now it is blooming. It is a delicate pinkish-orange color and the hummingbirds love it.


I caught this guy in the feeder...we definitely have a group of hummingbirds feeding in our various feeders and flowers. I love to hear them in the yard as I work.


Okay, I know this one is definitely not a "beauty" but I couldn't help including it since it is a one of the biggest of his kind that I have ever seen. We have an abundance of lizards in our backyard this year for some reason. This one was hanging out under the deck to escape the cat's notice.


Last but surely not least, our pink little strawberries. We have already harvested a batch but we ate them so fast that I didn't get a photo. So sweet and delicious and I can hardly wait to eat this next round.

Hope you enjoyed my garden photos for the week. There are so many things to look at right now in our yard. I spend a few minutes early each morning just taking a look to see what is new. Then after lunch I do my hand watering and that gives me another opportunity to see interesting things. Don't forget to investigate your little plot of green today!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

More Reptiles: Skink and a Snake

How does this happen? I can go along for weeks and not see any reptiles and then today the boys brought two very different reptiles to my attention.

First at my parent's house, the boys found the remnants of a small gopher snake (Pituophos melanoleucus). I will spare you the gory details but there was enough to identify this creature.

Then when we got home and we were out in the yard, they found a Gilbert's skink (Eumeces gilberti). I couldn't bear to even take photos but I am going to record the nature find here on our blog. After we got a good look at the skink, a Scrub jay came and snatched the skink and flew away. This is the same scrub jay that has a nest of babies outside my daughter's window in the oleander bush. We were able to see three baby birds in the nest today. It was a circle of life sort of day around here.

Here is the nest.


Here is the best I could get of the babies in the nest. (Try to click the image to make it larger.)


All in all, a good day for nature study and just the way I like it....just taking it as it comes to us as we go about our day.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

More Reptiles to Identify: Arizona Style

I am still struggling with my disgust of reptiles. Lizards are becoming a bit more palatable but as far as snakes go, I'm still struggling.

Good thing for me that we saw mostly lizards on our trip to Arizona.

On pages 210 to 213 of the Handbook of Nature Study there are many lizards and their descriptions listed. I think on page 213 that number 7 looks surprisingly like the lizards we saw in the photo below.


I did recognize this reptile but only was able to capture his hind end as he scurried under a rock. He was definitely some kind of iguana.


These two photos were taken while we were at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. They had an enclosure where they used to have a bear but the bear has since been retired to a more comfortable place on the grounds. The enclosure did have these interesting, if not rather large, reptiles inhabiting it.


Climbing up the rocks


This guy was also at the museum and was making his way across the riparian habitat.


Now for something pretty to look at. I can only take reptiles for so long and then I need something colorful and beautiful to enjoy.


Close up of the spines


Are you proud of me? We are still working on identifying the reptiles for their nature journals but we are learning a lot along the way.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Reptiles for Nature Study: Mustering Up My Enthusiasm

King snake

Unidentified reptile

Edit: Pretty sure this is a Desert spiny lizard

Sometimes I feel very inadequate to teach about something my boys are interested in studying. Reptiles are one subject that I would put in that category. I have a huge aversion to the sight of reptiles, but on closer acquaintance I am not so put off and can see the beauty in their creation and how they fit into the web of life.

The process of going from feeling totally disgusted by these sorts of creatures to admiration is by getting to know them better. Here is what the Handbook of Nature Study says about reptiles and nature study.

"But she(the teacher) was equal to the occasion, and surprised them by declaring that there were many interesting things to be studied about snakes, and forthwith sent to the library for books which discussed these reptiles; and this was the beginning of a nature study club of rare efficiency and enterprise." Handbook of Nature Study, page 193

What better way to follow your child's interest than to learn right alongside them? I can't always start off as excited about things as my children are but I can muster up enthusiasm at learning about it as part of God's creation. Each animal and plant has a place in the intertwined web of life we have all around us. Snakes, lizards, spiders, rodents, and everything else each are dependent on each other and in the long run so are we. Each creature has a job to do and when I think about that in relation to snakes and reptiles, it encourages me to dig a little deeper with my children.

I know my boys always learn more if they are interested in a topic so we are off to the library and internet to study reptiles.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

California Newts and Tree Frogs: Outdoor Hour #3

March 1, 2008
Dear Nature Friends,
Today we took our Outdoor Hour Challenge on the road, or should I say trail? The last Friday of every month we take the day off from our regular schooling to have a Nature Day. This is something I have been doing all year with my 12 and 14 year old sons. We take the day and focus on some aspect of nature that fits in with our science lessons or our interests.

Please remember when you read my post and view my photos (and a short video) that we have been doing nature study in our family since these two boys were able to walk....a long time. We also live in a moderate climate and have limitless access to wilderness. This hike is literally out our door and a few miles away. On a scale of one to ten, this day was a perfect ten. I hope that puts our experience in perspective for you beginners. This is what your nature study can look like in a few years if you keep at it, little by little.

In challenge number 1 I shared our hike on a new trail...the one with the ferns and the unusual bud. We wanted to take the hike all the way to the river this time so after a short stop at our tree in the woods, we headed over to the trailhead. We set off at a quick pace but soon we found wildflowers blooming and of course I had to stop to take a few photos. (click on any photos to make them larger)

Buttercup

I wasn't able to identify this one yet, need to see it flowering.
We saw our first butterflies of the season, big brown ones and little blue ones. The sun was actually hot and we shed a layer of sweaters and sweatshirts...good thing I had my backpack on this hike. :) We had good conversation as we hiked along. Oh, we saw what the "unusual looking bloom" was from our last trip. It is actually just the way the leaves pop out on this particular plant.

It was a long downhill hike to get to the river, I think about a mile and a half but the hard part is that it was a really steep downhill grade. I kept thinking about the hike back up with great dread. Would the hike be worth it we kept asking?


The minute we hit the edge of the river and I was shedding my pack, the boys excitedly called to me to come over and look at something. I could tell it was something good by the tone in their voices. Wow! A whole pool of California newts!

We spent quite a bit of time watching them in their courtship dance in the crystal clear water. Fascinating and we felt so grateful to have seen it. My youngest slipped into the water with one foot and had a soaking shoe, sock, and pant leg for the rest of the hike. After a few photos and a video, we all sat at the edge of the river and rested and listened and just soaked it all in.

Yes, you can train your children to sit quietly and listen.

The boys were soon doing their usual river thing...throwing in rocks. I sat and worked in my nature journal drawing the blackberry leaves and vine next to me. The boys found a little gold flake in the gravel at the edge of the river. We actually live near where the California Gold Rush started on this very river.

I need to make a note to put a little vial for collecting things in my backpack. This flake was dropped into the rocks and was never seen again. He wants to go back and try again some time.

But the highlight of the day happened right when we were packing up to go back up the trail.....yes, you haven't seen the highlight yet. The boys spotted a frog that had just jumped out of the water onto a rock. Back out comes the camera to try to get a photo for their nature journals.

While getting a few good photos, two of the frogs started croaking. Their throats blew up like balloons and the sound of it was awesome. Would you like to hear? [If you are on email subscription you will need to come over the the blog to see the video..I think.]There are actually two frogs croaking in the video and they croak at about 25 seconds and 50 seconds into the video. When we got home we pulled out our field guide and identified this as a Pacific Treefrog.


Popout

Both boys wanted to do their journals on the newt.

I got a new scanner but I have not learned how to operate it very well yet...maybe next scan will be better.
Thanks for sharing our very exciting "day out" with us. Hope it inspired and encouraged you in to have some of your own adventures with nature study. Our family looks forward to each time we have to share time out of doors. The answer to the question earlier about whether the hike would be worth the effort? Yes, totally and completely. I would go again right now....sore muscles and all.

One last photo of my son and I kneeling over the water trying to see the frogs.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom