There was an eighteen-inch Eastern garter snake hanging out in my yard over the weekend, bringing the total number of snake species recorded here at the new Burns homestead to two. (Remember this guy?)
In other news, there is a Great horned owl hanging out somewhere nearby. I’ve heard him two out of the last three nights. Sorta makes a girl want to head outside and look for pellets …
Have a wild day!
Another wild photo from our trip to Acadia in July. And, yes, I realize it is not Wednesday. But yesterday was filled with First Day of School and Back to Work craziness, and I forgot.
Happy Thursday!
Attention teachers and science lovers: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has launched a new website devoted entirely to the award-winning Scientists in the Field (SITF) series. These books for upper elementary and middle school students cover an impressive array of science topics, from honey bees and trash (my two entries in the series, pictured above) to sea horses, wild horses, manatees, tarantulas, anthropology, space exploration, and beyond. The new site includes an overview of the series, including every SITF title, and features sneak peeks from upcoming titles and updates from the authors.
What are you waiting for? Go check it out!
I had to pull out my trusty butterfly field guides in order to ID this fellow. See that white marking on the hind wing, the one that looks like a question mark on its side? That was the key.
Happy Wednesday!
We can’t put this book down. And I can’t stop reminding my daughter, who is reading with me, that she should never sneak out of the house at night and climb on top of a styrofoam raft …
More seaside wildlife this week, direct from our vacation on Mount Desert Island in Maine. This was a decent-sized hermit crab, though you’d never know it because we forgot to put something in the photo for scale. Anyway, he was discovered on the sandbar connecting Bar Harbor and Bar Island, just as the sun was setting on another gorgeous August afternoon.
I hope you had some wild in your Wednesday!
THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES:
Lost Groves, Champion Trees and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet
By Jim Robbins
Spiegel & Grau, 2012
Category: Nonfiction for Grownups
“We can wait around for someone else to solve the problem of climate change and the range of other environmental problems we face, from toxic waste to air pollution to dead zones in the oceans to the precipitous decline in biodiversity, or we can take matters into our own hands and plant trees.”
If you have even a smidgeon of doubt that this statement is true, read this book. I predict that when you’re done, you’ll plant a tree. Or twenty.
Postscript: For those of you who are truly into nonfiction, particularly children’s nonfiction, don’t forget about the weekly Nonfiction Monday celebration. Check it out here!
If you’ve read my new book, Citizen Scientists, then you know each chapter concludes with a Quick Quiz that tests readers’ knowledge of the butterflies, birds, frogs, and ladybugs they’ve been reading about. The little fellow in the photo above, who I met this week, has inspired me to create an online version today.
On a recent trip to Maine, my family and I came upon a pond covered in lily pads and ringing with the sounds of a one-stringed banjo. (Want to see a photo of this pond? Click here.) At first we couldn’t see the banjo strummers, because they blended so well with the lily pads. But because we’ve studied frog calls a bit, we knew who we were dealing with.
Do you?
First clue: its call sounds like a one-stringed banjo.
Second clue: the frog is pictured in the photo above, which was taken after one of my kids tossed a pebble into the pond and got the frogs there moving enough for me to see them!
So … which New England frog is it?
You know I love the wild in my own backyard … but this summer I had the chance to venture outside of it and explore another wild place: Acadia National Park.
Oh, my. It’s a spectacular place!
On one of my favorite adventures, we found this baby turtle sunning and stretching its legs (if you look closely you can see the stretching) on a pond not far from Eagle Lake on Mount Desert Island. If pictures came with audio, this one would feature the croaking of frogs, the chattering of squirrels, the squawking of crows, and the gentle rain of wind moving through the surrounding forest. Heavenly.
I’m soaking up John Hanson Mitchell’s A FIELD GUIDE TO YOUR OWN BACK YARD: A SEASONAL GUIDE TO THE FLORA & FAUNA OF THE EASTERN US this week, and I came across these words among his early spring (April, May, June) thoughts on peepers:
“… although a great deal is known about the mating habits of this common frog, not much is known about the other nine months of its life.”
They caught my attention because I happened to have observed something interesting about the post early-spring life of spring peepers recently. For the past two field seasons, while hunting for ladybugs in a milkweed meadow here in central Massachusetts, I’ve come across a surprising number of resting peepers. I’d estimate that I’ve made 4-6 individual observations, and always on the hottest and most humid of peak summer days. In each case, the frog in question was sitting on the top face of a milkweed leaf about three to four feet off the ground, shaded by the leaves above it.
Perhaps this is common spring peeper behavior? Perhaps its been observed and recorded a thousand times? Or–and I love this idea–perhaps I’ve seen something new?
There are ways to find out, of course. I can consult field guides and amphibian research journals in search of information on spring peeper behaviors recorded in summertime. I can get in touch with amphibian experts or local naturalists and ask them what they know. Or I could simply continue watching milkweed meadows and recording my peeper observations. Citizen-scientist-style.
