Winter Wednesday - Week 8 Birds

This week the challenge was to set out a bird feeder and observe the Winter birds that came. While it has primarily been visited by Starling, Field Sparrows and White crested Sparrows. I have glimpsed Quail, Mallards as well as a Robin. The Robin was not feeding out of the feeder of course, but it was eating worms and whatever other bugs it could find close to the feeder.
The sparrows make a mess of the feed which gets scattered onto the ground, in turn it becomes feed for everyone else.
The Quail come out around 4:00 in the afternoon everyday. They are fun to watch. Usually they pair up, but not always. There are about 30 of them and they scurry from here to there so quickly that you have to be careful or you might miss them. Should they see any movement on my part they would be gone in a heartbeat. As a result, pictures have not been an option for me, although I have tried. They just do not turn out. I am too far away.
I have done some research on the California Quail and found out several interesting facts I did not know before. Their Latin name is Callipepla californica.
A very handsome Male Quail.
A Lovely Little Lady. (both pictures come from the Cornell web site)
In a good year a female will lay 2 clutches of eggs. She will leave the first clutch in the care of an associated male. Their diet consists mainly of seeds and leaves, but they also eat some berries and insects.
They seem to prefer sunny places in which to create these dust baths, and an ornithologist is able to detect the presence of quail in an area by spotting the circular indentations left behind in the soft dirt, some 7-15 cm (3-6 in.) in diameter.
Here is some more info I found at the Cornell web site:

Cool Facts

• The topknot looks like a single feather, but it is actually a cluster of six overlapping plumes.
• The California Quail digests vegetation with the help of protozoans in its intestine. Chicks acquire the protozoans by pecking at the feces of adults. (This was something I would never have guess at.)
  
• Several California Quail broods may mix after hatching and are attended by all of the parents of those broods. Adults that engage in communal brooding live longer than adults that do not.
• Mated pairs call antiphonally: they alternate calls and fit them into a specific pattern.
• Despite living in arid environments, the California Quail needs drinking water during periods of sustained heat. During cooler weather, it can get enough moisture from eating insects and succulent vegetation.
• This is cool too; Quail call, (also obtained from the Cornell site. I love hearing this sound)
  
  I am looking forward to making an entry into my nature journal about the quail.
  
  Tomorrow is the last day for Winter Wednesday. I will miss it. It has been an enjoyable journey, making me take the time to really do more than glance at the world around me. I still have the Outdoor hour though, and I plan to expand on it. Especially now that I have my own hard copy book as well as the pdf copy that I can use to print pages from. I should not forget to mention I also have Barbara McCoy's (and company) pdf book of her first 10 Outdoor Hour Challenges.
  
  

Winter Wednesday Insects

For Winter Wednesday this week I waited until I had clear enough weather and at the same time I was free to take some shots.
My first ones were a little blurry, my fault not the cameras.
This is a blog of firsts. This is also my first attempt at using Flickr. Barbara mentioned using it when sending her pics and so I checked it out and my head began to swim. I gave it a rest then went back to tackle it. Probably could have asked her, but I am sure she has a really full plate already and felt I needed to give myself the challenge at solving it myself. Did not find a lot of help at the site, must have overlooked it somehow. I am still stumbling around but will figure it out as I go. (found the help. I am just not patient enough I guess)
I do not recognize the Beetle by name, but we have a lot of them here.

The Pill Bug everyone knows and I think everyone has somewhere around their house.
I tried the suggestion of Barbara an checked out what was living on the trees.
WHOA!!!! Made me jump a few times. I took these pics of insects hiding in the bark of a Eucalyptus tree.
I was surprised to find a steady stream of ants busy at work. It took several shots before I actually got the ant and not the tree. They kept moving out of focus.
The spiders were really cool. This little black one was so tiny I almost missed him. He might, maybe measure 1/8" .
This one was a little aggressive. I jumped several times. I would be gently holding the bark back to take a shot an he would run toward my fingers. Oh boy! I like spiders but not near my hands!
Here he is trying to find a little niche to avoid my prying.
I think this is a male mosquito, but that is just a guess. He was hiding under the bark.

I am pretty sure this is a silver fish. Usally they scurry so quickly they are hard to get a picture of, but this guy was chilling.
This was kinda cool, a whole group of different insects all gathered together.




























If you are interested in Barbara's Winter Wednesday Challenges click the Winter Wednesday pic at the top of this blog.
You may also be interested in her Outdoor Hour Challenges. Great for any Nature Lover and Home School Parent.
She has consolidated the first 10 Challenges into an e-book which she has for sale at a reasonable price of 8.95, (this is a limited time price)
I bought the book and was extremely happy with it.
I plan to put the file on a flash drive, take it to Kinkos and have it printed and Spiral bound.
This is an excellent addition to your nature studies.
If interested click on the photo to the right.

Nature Walk

I have been following Barbara's Handbook of Nature Study web blog site as a part of my Home Schooling with my grandson. (If you click the picture to the left you will be taken to her Outdoor Challenge page.)
I want to post most of the information on my Inspire a Child blog, but since since I only have him once a week, I have begun to do some of the challenges on my own.
BTW, Barabara has just made available an e-book of the challenges. I plan on buying a copy for myself and maybe one for my daughter as well. If you click the picture to the right you may go straight to her blog for more information.
Challenge 1 encouraged us to take a walk and just observe and enjoy the outdoors. We found two things of interest we plan on doing more research on, Oak galls and tree resin. We did research on line as well as in the Handbook of Nature Study. What was interesting is that I had always thought it was tree sap running down the trunk, but that thought was corrected to it actually being tree resin, which after many, many years becomes amber. The reference to galls was found on page 335 of the Handbook of Nature Study. The reference to tree resin was found on page 756 under fossils of the Handbook of Nature Study. We found more information online. Although there were not a lot of links just on tree resin we did find two links for Amber, the product of aged tree resin:
Amber, Wiki
Amber
We did find quite a bit on oak galls and their source, a little gall wasp. Hmm who knew a little wasp could make such a large ball? Many of the links had a lot of advertising, but this one was just information:
Galls
I have been participating in The Great Backyard Bird Count htis weekend as well. That information is posted on my Inspire a Child Blog.

Rain and Wisteria

The weatherman has threatened rain on and off for some time, but each instance brought little or not rain. Today was to be another deluge, but although cold, showed little evidence that the prediction would come to be fulfilled.
And then it happened......RAIN and lots of it!
It did not last long, but while it did it poured!
I loved the way the rain dripped off of the Wisteria.
While snapping some shots I got a lovely gift, the first of the Tom Thumb Daffodils have begun to bloom.