Wood Lake Nature Center - Our First Pond Study

The kids and I decided to take a walk at the Wood Lake Nature Center this afternoon. We have been itching to get a pond water sample ever since we got our Microscope.

I'll tell you about our walk, but first a little celebration...
Emily fell asleep in the van on the way to Wood Lake (of course). When we got there I got her out of the car seat, into her Ergo carrier, and onto my back. And she stayed asleep! Yay me!

Ok, back to the walk, sorry about that interruption... it was just a big deal for us!

We love Wood Lake. You just never know what you might see there! And this visit was no exception. We got to see a couple of mama Mallard Ducks with their babies in tow. This one was watching over the chicks as they took a rest in the sunshine...

We saw one other mama Mallard standing on the trail. As we walked up I told Tyler to stop for a second, and sure enough up over the bank came a chick. Mama escorted it across the trail and then we continued on our walk. I told Tyler that must be the Duck Crossing. :)
We wonder why we didn't see any male Mallards?

We saw a lot of other birds as well... Red-Winged Blackbirds, Robins, Grackles, a Cardinal, and a Canadian Goose... We also saw a couple of Mourning Doves in the trail ahead of us at one point. This was our first time seeing this bird species. I will have to remember to add it to our Bird List.

There were Dragonflies everywhere! Well, at least we thought there were Dragonflies everywhere. It turns out they weren't all Dragonflies. These Blue Ringtail Damselflies were all over the place there. So beautiful...

We walked onto the floating boardwalk and it was time to gather our pond water sample. Tyler picked a good spot and dipped our jar into the pond...

Looks like he got a good pond sample... we got water, critters, and seaweed! See?

As soon as he stood up and we peeked into the jar of water we could see two little "bugs" swimming around. They were bright RED... their bodies were perfect circles with little legs sticking out all around. These were fun to look at under the microscope when we got home. We found out that they have really hairy legs! We have identified them as Eylais using a book I got from PaperbackSwap called Adventures with a Microscope. Great book, by the way! It turns out they are a water-mite... and those hairs on their legs? They use them for swimming.

The other two creatures we found in our jar haven't been identified yet...

The first one was also visible with the naked eye. It appeared to be a tiny little black water beetle of some sort. When we viewed it under our microscope, though, it looked quite odd! It still looked like a beetle, but it had a long elephant-like nose!! Very strange looking!

The other creatures were very interesting and we found ourselves observing them for quite some time. There were two of them together on our slide. They were a worm of some sort, we think. They appeared to be a clear jelly-like substance that we could see through. We could see several spots on them, like something was in the "jelly". Some of the spots were black and some were reddish in color. Their appearance wasn't the only interesting thing about them though. They were on (or maybe even attached to) opposite sides of a piece of seaweed, and they would stretch out once in awhile around the edge of the weed and bump "noses" with each other. We have no clue what exactly they were, but they were very fun and cool to watch.

Tyler thought it was all very cool looking. I think the pond creatures look like something from outer space or a science fiction movie or something!! Its so strange to think that there are millions more like them, and some even odder looking, swimming in that pond!

As I was checking these things out I was so wishing I had a way to share what we were seeing with you. I began to wonder what would happen if I took a photo through the microscope lens with my digital camera. Hmmm... I decided to try it. They didn't turn out real great, but its sort of interesting. There might be a way to play with it and get them better too. Here are the photos of the "elephant-nosed beetle" and one of the "jelly worms"...

We had a fun time with our microscope (Thanks Dad!) today. We can't wait to look at more interesting things with it!

Sprouting Socks - Part 1

Today we decided to try out a fun experiment that I found in a book called 365 Nature Crafts & Activities. Basically, you put a pair of old socks on over your shoes and walk around in the tall grass and weeds. Then you bring your socks home and put them in a shallow pan and keep them moist. After a few days any seeds that got on your socks when you walked in the grass should begin to sprout. Sounds fun, huh? The book says the best time of year to do this experiment is in the early Fall, but we decided to try it anyway. I think we'll do it again in the Fall... in the same spot so that we can compare.

So here is Tyler walking in the tall grass and weeds in his socks...

I took a couple of pictures of some of the things growing there so we could compare them to our sprouts when they start popping up...

and

And lastly, here is our pan of grass stained, dirty, and wet socks. The things we'll do in the name of education....

I'll let you know when (and if) we see sprouts!

UPDATE 6/9/08: We are sorry to report that our socks did not sprout. :(
Discouraging, I know, but we will try again in the Fall!

Happy Hail Day

We've been hanging low this week because I haven't been feeling well. Soon after we got home from our Nature Walk on Tuesday I began feeling the crud... achy body, stuffed up nose, headache, all that fun stuff. So I spent lots of time resting. I also got a lot of thinking and planning done for school next year. Its so fun to be putting it all together. But today I was feeling a bit better so we headed out to Wood Lake Nature Center to check on our friends, the Red-Winged Blackbirds. They were there and singing their songs for us. What struck us as strange though is that there were absolutely NO ducks or geese to be seen. Not a single one. Normally they are all over the place there. I guess they may be hiding out nesting? We just thought it was weird not to see any since we usually see many species of ducks along with lots of geese. But we had a nice walk anyway. My camera was having a hard time with the sun for some reason, but I did manage to get one ok photo of Tyler and Emily together...

We got home just in time to hear the sirens going off so we headed to the basement and waited for the storm to hit. We had some thunder and lightening... and heavy rain... and small hail. Hail! Tyler was excited over the hail. I think this is the first time he's seen it. Daddy even brought him in a handful to check out. He kept it in a bowl until it melted. I snapped a couple of photos while it was coming down. These were taken through our basement window, so they're not the best but I think they turned out cool...

They were about pea size, some more like dime size. We were lucky, some places in MN had hail up to golf ball size!! The storms have moved past us now, but they are still going to the southeast of us... some growing stronger. Hope everyone stays safe in the path!

Nature Walk at the Quaking Tamarak Bog

We went for a nature walk with my CM Nature Study in MN group today at the Quaking Tamarak Bog in Theodore Wirth Park, right here in Minneapolis. I am constantly amazed at the little hidden away oasises of nature we have right here in the City. There were 14 of us walking today... 5 Moms and 9 children. It was so fun to meet some new friends!

We met a couple of ladies along the trail who brought our attention to some fairly loud bird sounds coming from a nearby tree. We were able to pinpoint it to a small round hole in the tree quite a ways up off the ground. I tried to look in the hole using my binoculars, but I couldn't see anything. As I was looking, though, a Woodpecker came along... it landed on the tree and walked over to the hole. It stuck its head in the hole for a few seconds and then flew off. I am certain we were watching a Downy Woodpecker's nest!

"The downy's nest is a hole, usually in a partly decayed tree;
an old apple tree is a favorite site and a new excavation is
made each year. There are from four to six white eggs, which
are laid on a nice bed of chips almost as fine as sawdust.
The door to the nest is a circle about an inch and a quarter across."
~Anna Botsford Comstock - The Handbook of Nature Study - Page 72~

It was nice to have Amanda join us for this walk. She is very knowledgeable about Wildflowers and the likes. She helped us to identify quite a few of the flowers we saw along the trail...

Wild Calla


Star Flower


Wild Columbine

She even introduced us to a Wild Edible... Garlic Mustard. It is an Invasive Species, so we picked a leaf to try it out. When rubbed it smells like Garlic. It has a salad green, lettuce, leafy flavor. Tyler says he didn't like it! :)

Garlic Mustard

Our new friend, Heather, brought her microscope along! She grabbed a sample of the water from the Bog and the kids took turns looking at it under the microscope. They really liked this part.

Tyler decided it would be cool to have a microscope... I was telling my Dad this over the phone and he said that he has one at his house that he never uses and he will send it to Tyler! Yay!

We had a really fun walk and enjoyed spending time with all of our friends, both old and new! We hope to get together again real soon!

Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden & Bird Sanctuary

"A tree with its delicate tracery

of leafless branches

is a thing of beauty to eyes

that are adjusted to see it."

~ Eloise Butler

Tyler's best friend, Jacob, joined us for our nature walk today. We decided to check out the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden & Bird Sanctuary. It turned out to be a gorgeous afternoon, despite some sprinkles during the drive there. The kids really enjoyed themselves and got to see a lot of neat things in nature. I took quite a few photos so here is a little slideshow...

We also worked on our Outdoor Hour Challenge #5 today... Keeping a List. Our focus area right now is Birds, so we are creating a list of all of the birds that we see during our walks. I used Melissa's Bird List. I have added all of the Birds we have seen so far to it as well as the two we saw today (Black-Capped Chickadee and American Redstart). I have it clipped in the front of my Nature Journal so that we can update it as we return from our walks. I also grabbed a little spiral-bound notebook today. I thought I could keep that in my pocket when I don't bring my Nature Journal on our walks in case we want to jot down the things we see along the way for adding to our Journals and Bird list later.

Nature Walk Marathon - Part 2

Here we are at Part 2 of our nature walk marathon with Dave.

Nature Walk Marathon - Part 1 can be found HERE

Our next stop was Father Hennepin Park over by St. Anthony Falls. I hadn't been down this trail since before Tyler was born, so this was fun. Again, this trail goes right along the Mississippi River. Very pretty country.

We got to see a Great Blue Heron carrying a long stick in his beak. We think he must have been nesting somewhere nearby. Daddy got a kick out of calling it a Pterodactyl to make Tyler look. He's a funny guy. :)

We also got to see some trees that a Beaver had been chewing on. We even noticed the wood chips on the ground around the tree. It was neat to compare the recent one he is working on with the older ones that had been chewed and fell down awhile ago.

You can see pictures of the Heron and the Beaver tree in my Flickr Photostream up at the top of the blog. But I want to devote this post to this next guy. Check him out...

That, my friends, is a Green Heron! Isn't he beautiful!?! I saw him from a distance as I walked down the trail and I thought he looked interesting, so as we got closer I found a spot that we could observe him from. He sat on the log for us for quite awhile, then he flew over to a nearby tree for a bit and then back to the log. We think he is probably nesting in the tree.

These birds are amazing. It is pretty uncommon to see them because they are nocturnal and also very secretive and they nest singly, not in flocks like most birds. The nest is a basket of sticks in a tree, usually over water. They lay from 2 to 6 eggs, 2 days apart... the eggs hatch in about 19-25 days. Both the male and the female Green Heron incubate the eggs and feed the young. They eat fish, insects, and other invertebrates and water arthropods. A couple of other interesting tidbits... the Green Heron can hover for short periods to catch their prey. Most often, though, they sit very still on a log or in shallow water and wait for their prey to come to them. They sometimes even put a worm or twig on the top of water as bait to lure fish to them!! They are one of very few "tool using" birds in existence. Isn't that amazing?

Here are a couple of links in case you want to know more about these awesome birds...

Green Heron on All About Birds

Green Heron on Wikipedia

Green Herons on the MNDNR's Young Naturalists site

Our 3rd stop was at Meeker Island Historic Lock & Dam. The path was flooded here so we didn't get to walk too far, but it was still beautiful right down along the Mississippi River. We saw some wildflowers and flowering trees here. The history behind this place was interesting. It was the first Lock & Dam on this part of the river. It was open for 5 years and then Lock & Dam 1 was built in 1917 with hydroelectric power. It was able to handle the job of both facilities, so this one was closed and demolished. There are still some remains of it there to be seen though.

That concludes our Nature Walk Marathon.... we learned a lot, saw some very cool things, experienced some history. We had great time too! What more could we ask for?!

THE END

Nature Walk Marathon - Part 1

Dave took us for a ride today and decided to show us around a few nearby spots along the Mississippi River that he thought would be good for nature walks. And boy did he!! We ended up walking at 3 different spots today and we got to see some really neat things out there!

First stop was Boom Island Park. We are not new to this park. It is one of our local fishing spots. We had never really taken the time to walk the trails though, so this was a fun walk. Right away we were greeted by this little guy...

I have decided that I think it is a Yellow-Rumped Warbler. If anyone thinks differently, let me know please. I originally thought him to be a Yellow-Throated Warbler, but this little guy had a bright yellow behind when he flew away. So pretty.

As we continued along the trail we ran into a young boy and his dad. The little boy was carrying a net and Dad was carrying a pillowcase. Hmmm. So I said to Tyler I wonder what they're catching?? He said he had no idea, and went over to ask them. They were catching Garter Snakes. They had one in their pillowcase and even took him out for Tyler to see and pet. Tyler was giggling after because its tail wrapped around his finger. We ran into them a couple more times as we walked and they had caught a couple more. They got one out a second time and let Tyler hold it. Great nature study if you ask me! We also found out that they do this often... they catch critters and take them home and keep them for a week or so and then bring them back and release them and catch something else. Sounds fun! I told Tyler we would watch Craigslist for a used aquarium and try doing this. I think it would be fun to have a little revolving pet thing going... frogs, toads, snakes... We did a little tromping around in the grass to see if we could stir a snake up, but no luck!

We also came across this tree that had fallen over and ripped its roots right out of the ground. Tyler thought it was pretty cool...

And then there was this...

Goes to show that you never know WHAT you may find in nature!! LOL

(NOTE: That is NOT a real animal. Someone obviously has a sense of humor and decided to share it with us. :) )

We also saw a Cardinal, a Goldfinch, a bunch of Grackles, and a Rabbit during our walk here. We found a couple of cool rocks as well that we think might be Agates.

That concludes Part 1 of our Nature Walk Marathon... Part 2 will follow shortly. We saw something at our next stop that deserves its own post!

TO BE CONTINUED

Continued here - - Nature Walk Marathon - Part 2

Nature Walk at Eastman Nature Center

Tyler, Emily, Dave, and I met up with Michelle and her boys today for a nice walk in the woods at the Eastman Nature Center in Elm Creek Park. It turned out to be a beautiful day and we had the chance to see lots of fun things in nature out there.

We saw our first wildflowers of the season... some pretty purple Hepatica.

We did a lot of looking under logs and digging in the dirt...

Where we got dirty and found lots of fun little critters...

We also saw some fun birds and animal tracks along the trails. The boys had fun picking up "treasures" along the way... although some of them were not so much treasured by us parents!! All of us had fun and enjoyed the weather, the nature, and the company.

We will be using this outing as our Outdoor Hour Challenge Assignment #2. I will post that separately, as Tyler and Daddy headed out fishing in the boat as soon as we got home from our nature walk.

Nature Walk at Wood Lake Nature Center

Today was the first nature walk organized through my new Nature Group. We planned to meet up at the Wood Lake Nature Center. We didn't have a real good turnout. One mom was sick and one must have had something come up, so it was just me and the kids... but we had a great time enjoying nature anyways, and there was a ton of it to enjoy!

Here's Tyler doing a little pose for us at the beginning of our walk...

There were lots of birds and other animals out and about for us to enjoy today. This Mama Robin was busy building her nest...

Tyler thought it was silly that she was using pieces of plastic for her nest!

Meanwhile, Daddy Robin watched from a nearby fence...

These Red-Winged Blackbirds were all over the woods. They were really showing off for us... letting us get exceptionally close to them while they sang their songs for us.

The Waterfowl were out in pairs today as well. The Mallard Ducks...

The Canadian Geese. This one was eating...

This one was napping...

We saw a beautiful pair of Wood Ducks...

And this pair of Hooded Mergansers...

After our walk we spent a little time inside the Nature Center Building playing and learning.

We had a great time and saw some very cool things in nature today. Part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Assignment #1 was to choose something from our walk that we want to learn more about. Tyler thought we should learn more about those friendly Red-Winged Blackbirds. So that is our mission for the next week or so. We will begin by reading about them in our Handbook of Nature Study and The Sibley Field Guide to Birds. I told Tyler that I think there are some songs about Blackbirds, so we will look some of those up online and have fun with that as well. We'll also take some time to sketch a picture of one in our Nature Journal. I think he chose a good animal to study!

We used this scavenger hunt sheet during our walk. It really helped us to use all of our senses out there! Some of the other things we saw and experienced...


Things we saw:

A tree with blossoms on it

A bird

A bird's nest

Something moving in the breeze

A Squirrel

A Chipmunk

A Downy Woodpecker


Things we heard:

The wind rustling the leaves

A bird chirping


Things we felt:

Something cool in the shade

Something smooth

Something rough

Something wet

A goose feather


Things we smelled:

The grass

Smoke (they were burning off some grass near the building)