Chipmunks or Squirrels? Our Study Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge

When you spend as much time outdoors as our family does, you eventually come across squirrels and chipmunks. Squirrels are an everyday occurrence in our yard but we do not see chipmunks at all. Chipmunks sometimes find us when we are out hiking, always when you stop to eat a picnic at Yosemite. I think the Chipmunk study as part of the More Nature Study series of Outdoor Hour Challenges will be one that is on-going since we were unable this week to observe any up close.

This past summer we had an experience where we thought we had seen chipmunks but turns out they too were squirrels.



This little rodent was very curious about us as we sat on the granite rock taking a rest after a long hot hike. He was not afraid of us in the least bit, begging a bite of our granola bars. We know better than to feed wild animals but he didn't understand that people food is not good for him and insisted that he investigate our pack from the inside out.



We thought he was a chipmunk because of the stripes but when we got home and pulled up the field guide we realized he was a Golden-mantled ground squirrel. Our book says he is "medium sized" but we thought he was rather small compared to our other squirrels that we observe in our backyard, the Western gray squirrel and the Fox squirrel.



So how can we tell in the future that what we see IS a chipmunk? They have stripes on their head and our little ground squirrel does not.

Interesting facts:

• Traditional hibernator- subject of much research on hibernation.
• Eats leaves and seeds of grasses, occasionally eats nuts, roots, bulbs, and other underground plant parts.
• Lives in the coniferous forest at elevations of 5,200 to 12,500 feet.
• It is prey for hawks, jays, foxes, bobcats, and coyote.
• Has cheek pouches for carrying food.
• Digs shallow burrows (up to 100 feet) with hidden openings.
• Cleans itself by rolling in the dirt.

Since we don't have chipmunks in our neighborhood but we know we see them all the time when we are at Yosemite. Sounds like a good reason to take the drive soon!

Family Mammal Study - Unexpected Deer and Our Usual Squirrels

As part of preparing for our mammal study this week, I pulled our mammal field guide from our shelf to have for easy reference. I opened to the introductory pages and I would love to share a few thoughts from those pages with you in this post.

• Most mammals are creatures of the darkness, only becoming active at night after dark and returning home again before dawn.
• Most nocturnal mammals communicate by odor which humans cannot detect and with sounds which are frequently high pitched and low in volume.
• Direct observation of most mammals is difficult except for a few species like chipmunks and squirrels.
• The vocalizations of mammals have not been extensively explored and most make brief sounds called "call notes".

We were walking along our usual trail having a great conversation when my son twirled me around to get me to look up on the hill. He had spotted a few young deer not too far from where we were. They were slowly moving along, not really paying too much attention to us. 

California mule deer are very common in our area and we often see groups of 8-10 deer alongside the road or in grassy meadows. My husband actually hit a deer with his truck last month when he was coming home from work...minimal damage and the deer bounced back up and ran off into the woods. He was lucky. He once hit a deer and it totaled the vehicle.



We were planning on studying our backyard squirrels this week as part of our mammal study but we spent a little time reading up on the mule deer too. California mule deer are very graceful and agile mammals. They have lovely eyes but don't let those innocent looking eyes fool you. They have been known to eat my garden down to the ground in one night.


There are three fox squirrels and one gray squirrel in our yard just about every day. They are in the bird feeders and up in the trees chattering at us and the dog pretty much all day long. I started off trying to keep them out of the feeders but it is an impossible task.

They are very acrobatic and can get to just about any of our feeders.

We spend time each day watching these very acrobatic mammals hop from limb to limb and then hang upside down to eat from the feeders.

Here is a coloring page for a Fox Squirrel.  We found this website that has a recording of the sound the fox squirrel makes.


Again, I ended up including photos as part of my nature journal entry to show the differences between the Western gray squirrel and the Fox squirrel.

One of my sons told me that it used to be an "event" when the gray squirrel showed up in the yard but now we have so many squirrels that they are commonplace. We have started to think of them as rodent pests rather than welcome visitors.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

2011 Winter Series OHC #9 and Winter Wednesday #9 - Mammals in Winter Nature Study

Our Resident Pair of Fox Squirrels in Our Backyard

This week you are going to spend some time focusing on mammals.

OHC Winter Series #9 Mammals

Winter Wednesday #9 Mammals

Link for you to check out: Hibernation
This pdf can be printed out and shared with your children.

Ideas for you to try:
1. Keep a record of animal tracks you have observed in the snow or mud. Record your findings in your nature journal along with a drawing, the date, the weather, the time of day, and the type of animal if you have identified it at this time.
2. Compare a dog’s and a cat’s footprints in the snow or mud.
3. Research an animal that hibernates and record what you learn in your nature notebook. You can also sketch your animal and what its tracks look like.
4. Squirrel study ideas - Outdoor Hour Challenge #45 (printable from Scribd).
5. Rabbit study ideas - Outdoor Hour Challenge #44 (printable from Scribd).

My Fine Feathered Friends and Those With Bushy Tails

It's been a week for the birds.....

Who are you looking at?

Camera shy...or is this his better side?

Me and My Gal!

Who you callin' yellow?

Playing Statue.

Puffed Up With Pride....King of the Tree...Lord of the Flock.

Snacking on the Pink Stuff.

Now on to the furry friends...

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, swish your bushy tail.

Late for the fun...snow storm slowed me down...just a little.

"Where have you seen a squirrel? Does the squirrel trot along or leap when running on the ground? Does it run straight ahead or stop at intervals for observations? How does it look? How does it act when looking to see of the coast is clear?" Handbook of Nature Study, page 236.

If you have a squirrel to observe, I highly recommend looking at Lesson 57 in the Handbook of Nature Study. There are quite a number of questions to answer and to record in your nature journal. In this section Anna Botsford Comstock also gives the account of "Furry" their pet squirrel in journal style that you might like to read for fun to your children.

Hope you enjoyed taking a look at my friends.





Barb-Harmony Art Mom



As part of Tweet and See, here is our list of February 2011 birds observed for the month:

1. Mourning dove
2. Acorn woodpecker
3. Nuttall's woodpecker
4. Northern flicker
5. Oak titmouse
6. White-breasted nuthatch
7. American robin
8. Cedar waxwing
9. Spotted towhee
10. California towhee
11. White-crowned sparrow
12. Dark-eyed junco
13. House finch
14. House sparrow
15. Canada goose
16. Western scrub jay
17. Anna hummingbird
18. Lesser goldfinch
19. Red-shouldered hawk
20. American crow
21. Brewer's blackbird
22. Turkey vulture
23. Rock pigeon
24. California quail

Just a Few Backyard Birds...And a New Bird Resource

Are you ready for some more bird photos? I have been busy a little bit each day taking advantage of the dry weather to keep track of the backyard birds that visit.



First up in my son's camera is the Downy Woodpecker. He set up the camera on a tripod and we all watched until we saw the woodpecker visit the suet feeder. He was able to snap a few good shots as the bird ate a little lunch. This is a large and colorful bird that we always look forward to seeing in our backyard. Here is a LINK to what he sounds like.



If you have read my blog with any frequency you know that we have an abundance of Western Scrub Jays in our backyard, even a nesting pair. They always seem to know when I put out their favorite treats....peanuts and walnuts.



We have a pair of White-breasted nuthatches that come every day to our backyard. They are so much fun to watch as they climb up and down the trunks of trees, occasionally stopping to look for insects in the bark.
Here is a LINK to a video showing how they climb.



Oops! That is certainly not a bird! This fox squirrel is one of three that are daily in our birdfeeders. In fact, as I look out my window at this very moment there is one in the feeder that I can see. I have given up trying to keep them out of the feeders and I added one squirrel-proof feeder to another area just so the birds will still have a place to eat when the squirrels are in town.

I don't think I have shared the link to a new bird related page that I wrote over on Squidoo. Hop over and maybe you will find some fresh ideas for your yard.

How to Help Birds Survive the Winter

Tomorrow I will be posting the third challenges in the Winter and Winter Wednesday series. Don't forget to link up your entries for the first two challenges since you are never late!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Mammals - Nature Study Using the Outdoor Hour Challenges

#44 Rabbits
#45 Squirrels
#46 Woodchuck, Groundhog, Prairie Dog, and Marmot
#48 Rats and Beavers
#49 Bats
#50 Skunks and Badgers
#51 Wolf, Fox, and Dog
#52 Raccoons
Cats
Bats
Raccoons and Skunks
Horses

Winter Mammals/Tracks
Winter Mammals/Hibernation
Squirrels (Autumn)
Goats (Spring Splendor)
Mouse (Summer Sizzle)

You may also be interested in purchasing this

Forest Mammals Lapbook Kit from Hearts and Trees.

Hearts and Trees Mammal Lapbook Kit

Weekend in the Garden

I'm tired after a really busy weekend. Spring weather and the call to be outdoors getting dirt under my fingernails kept us busy, busy, busy.

Here are a few images to share a few glimpses into our weekend.


Our resident squirrel in the birdfeeder. I love his tail.



Harvesting the radishes and the first round of onions.



Blueberries growing so round and plump.



Lavender that is alive with bees.


The first round of weeding around the garden boxes is complete thanks to Mr. A. He and I have been working diligently at getting the weeds under control before the warm weather sets in for good. The boxes are all ready for the seedlings we have been nursing upstairs.


We found this guy when we were working in the roses. It was perfect timing since I am working on a cricket challenge for the Summer Series ebook. We were able to do some up close observations before we left him comfortably back on the rose bush.
Edit to add: K left me a comment saying that there is an ovipositor so my he is really a she. Thanks K.



No one says that hard work in the garden does not have its rewards. Yummy first strawberries were picked and eaten. The best ever end to a long weekend outdoors, except for maybe the grilled burgers my dear husband made us for dinner which we ate outside on our deck.

Hope you all had some time to get outdoors and enjoy whatever your world offered this weekend. I know that some of you have written to say that you don't have an apple tree to study but you could just as well study any tree you find in the Handbook of Nature Study as a substitute or you could do a general apple study using some apples you have on hand. If all else fails, spend fifteen minutes outdoors with your children and enjoy whatever comes your way.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Squirrel Study: Sad Story of Our Walnuts

We have a beautiful walnut tree in our backyard and it has always given us an abundance of nuts each autumn. The photo shown here is from a few years ago and shows part of our walnut harvest. Around this time of year, we are usually gathering oodles of nuts to dry and crack to eat and save for our baking.

Not this year.

Grey squirrels came and ate every last nut in our crop. Climbing into the tree, they would pick the nuts wrapped in their green outer coats, strip the casings off, and then proceed to crack the shells to get to the meat.

Piles and piles of shells and green casings dropped to the ground, littering the sidewalk and garden below. I thought surely they couldn't eat them all, but they did.

I have mixed feelings about the whole situation. On one hand, I love having the furry little guys in my yard and away from my birdfeeders. On the other hand, I would have liked to have had a few nuts in my pantry for cookies and muffins and salads. This autumn will be known as the year with no nuts.


Here is a short video I took of a Grey Squirrel that we observed in Yosemite this past spring. We loved his fluffy tail!

Our front yard also has a squirrel that visits quite frequently. It is a different variety of squirrel and he is FAST.

(I shared this photo a few weeks ago during our tree study...we think it is a Fox Squirrel.)



He is busy eating the seeds from the tulip tree.


Look at those feet! No wonder they can climb and jump like they do!

He nibbles and then scurries off down the street, as if he has a regular route he takes to dine at various spots in the neighborhood.


He is fun to watch as he bounds down the street and up onto the neighbor's narrow fence top. My son, who does a lot of his schoolwork in the living room at the table by the window, calls my attention to our resident squirrel all the time. We are getting to know him quite well this year.

The other day as I was driving down a fairly busy street in town, a squirrel decided to run out in front of me. I know from experience that they usually dart out of the way at the last minute and I try not to get too excited. This one seemed to look me in the eye as he sat in my lane of traffic, a crazy game of chicken. Starting to move, he zigged and zagged a little in front of me and stood still again as I got closer. I slowed a bit and started coaching him to "Get out of the way!" At the last possible moment, he ran off to the side of the road and quickly up a tree. Why do they do that?

For the most part, we enjoy our neighborhood squirrels and find a great deal of entertainment value in this rodent. Our favorite squirrel actually walks the telephone line at a busy intersection in town. We see him probably once a week doing his tight-rope act, defying gravity and giving us something to be in awe about with this little one of God's creation.

Here is our link to our previous squirrel study if you would like to read that one:
Squirrel Study


Watch this video to see another common squirrel in our area...the California Ground Squirrel. This video was taken last spring on a hike we took not too far from our home.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge Autum Series-Squirrels

The Outdoor Hour Challenge this week is to learn about squirrels. During autumn, squirrels are still very active gathering their stash of food. This challenge was originally posted as Challenge #45 and we only had a dozen or so people share links. I think that means that there are a lot of you who could still complete this challenge during our Autumn Series.

Please Note: If you do not have squirrels to observe, pick another mammal in your local area that you can learn about. Squirrels are rodents so you could choose a muskrat, a mouse, a woodchuck, or a chipmunk from the Handbook of Nature Study and still have a great time learning about a mammal that you have locally.

Here are the videos I shared in the original challenge to get your children interested in squirrels. The first one shows the squirrel's fantastic physical abilities. You will need to click over to my blog to actually view the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWU0bfo-bSY


This one tries to explain how they can find the nuts they hide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5HffZbeNGk

Amazing.


Outdoor Hour Challenge
Autumn Series #6 Squirrels
(Formerly Challenge#45)

Inside Preparation Work
Read pages 233-237 in the Handbook of Nature Study. Use your highlighter to mark the sections with facts you can share with your children. There are plenty of observation suggestions in Lesson 57 on pages 236 and 237. Keep these ideas in mind as you take your nature walk this week.

“The squirrel’s legs are short because he is essentially a climber rather than a runner; the hips are very strong, which insures his power as a jumper, and his leaps are truly remarkable.”

“The squirrel has two pairs of gnawing teeth which are very long and strong, as in all rodents, and he needs to keep busy gnawing hard things with them, or they will grow so long that he cannot use them at all and will starve to death.”

“During the winter, the red squirrel does not remain at home except in the coldest weather, when he lies cozily with his tail wrapped around him like a fur neck-piece to keep him warm.”
Handbook of Nature Study, pages 234 and 235

Here is an additional fact sheet on squirrels:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/printable/squirrel.html
And here:
http://www.squirrels.org/facts.html

Outdoor Hour Time
Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors on a nature walk. As you walk, discuss where you might find a squirrel in your neighborhood. Remind your child where a squirrel lives and what it eats. If you know there is a squirrel in your yard or at your local park, take along some nuts or seeds to put out and observe the squirrel eating. Never feed a squirrel by hand. Don’t worry if you cannot observe a squirrel this week but rather enjoy your outdoor time during this season and observe any mammals that you come into contact with during your walk.

Follow-Up Activity
For your nature journal you can write out your observations from your squirrel watching. Use the observation suggestions for ideas to include in your entry: describe the color of the fur, how the eyes are placed, what do the paws look like, how does the squirrel climb up and down a tree, describe the sound the squirrel makes as he expresses himself, record the tracks that the squirrel makes in the snow.

I have created a notebook page for you to use with your study this week and it is listed in the free download section of my sidebar. 

If you would like to complete a lapbook on mammals, my daughter over at Hearts and Trees has one available for the reasonable price of $3.95:
Hearts and Trees Mammals Lapbook Kit

She also has a Weather Lapbook Kit available that I forgot to mention last week for the weather study. It is also very reasonably priced at $2.95 and will take you and your children more deeply into a study of the weather.
Hearts and Trees Weather Lapbook Kit

If you order a kit, be a little patient. Amanda has just moved to a place where she does not have internet access and it might take a day or two for her to answer your email and get the PDF to you.

Do not forget that you can always catch up on the Autumn Series Challenges over on my Squidoo Lens. I periodically add additional resources and suggestions for related art and music study using the Squidoo Lens.

Please come back and share your link on Mr. Linky. The Autumn Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges is such a great community and everyone loves to see what the other families are doing for their study. Thanks for your participation.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Music While We Walked, Catkins to Look At, and a Squirrel Entertainer

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Click this photo! Gorgeous!

We had a unique experience the other day out on a walk in an area where at this time of year there are very few other people. It was a quiet, bird watching sort of day as we hiked along until one section of the trail where I swore I heard music. We all stopped and listened and sure enough, far in the distance we could hear music playing....I thought banjo music. We had no idea where the music was coming from. We were pretty far from the parking area, we had only seen one other person the whole afternoon, and I was fairly sure it was someone actually playing the music since it sort of started and stopped and wasn't like it was a CD or something like that.

We rounded one bend in the trail and we had our answer. You can listen for yourself here in this very short video. (I felt really weird taking a video but I was sure we would want to remind ourselves of this in the future...it made us smile.)




We did eventually catch up to these two walking along and they were just out enjoying the spring weather, making some music. I have no idea what kind of instrument he was playing. It looked to be homemade. It sort of looked like a guitar/banjo/cigar box stringed instrument.

Sometimes I feel like playing music when I am out on a hike too. No, I won't be doing it anytime soon.

Here is a little friend that entertained us on this afternoon as well.

California ground squirrel....he was posing for us for a very long time.

We also had a chance to observe up close the catkins of the Quaking aspens. This is something new and interesting that I want to do some more research about.....the boys were not impressed with this subject but I will do research on my own. :)

The photo at the top of the page is a bunch of catkins hanging on the tree. Aren't they pretty?

Something I learned about the Quaking aspen is that is the preferred food of the beaver. It makes total sense to me since this is where we saw the beaver's dam and there is an abundance of aspens. I love making connections.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Another Glorious Winter Walk-Searching for Mammals

We had another chance to take a walk up in the high country yesterday. The boys were snowboarding but we preferred to take a slower approach to our day. We took two hours to tramp around in the woods and see what we could find.

Here was something we found interesting. It looks as if an animal scratched the bark off this Jeffrey pine to get at something underneath...insects? If you look closely you can see the chunk of bark sticking out from under the snow.


Here is a close-up.


Lots of prints in the snow.....dogs and otherwise. We aren't sure about these. They seem too close together to be a dog and there are no marks for the claws like dogs have.


We think these are squirrel tracks.


Some squirrels had a feast on this stump that we came across as we crunched through the snow. I have come to appreciate that there are animals that depend on this food source in the middle of winter. As we stopped at one point along our walk, a huge cone came crashing down just a few feet from us. As you look around the forest floor, you see cones just about everywhere in various stages of being eaten.


Somehow we lost the trail as we wandered around looking at various interesting things. Yes, that is my hubby looking for a way back to the trail. He assured me he knew which way to go. :)


If you have to be lost, can you imagine a more peaceful place? It was quiet and sunny and warm and we knew generally that we needed to head towards that mountain to get back to the main trail.

We eventually found our way back and it was a really good thing because I was getting tired and hungry. We saw so many other things but I will share those in another post.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom