In the forefront of this picture is my newly dug garden. (More on that another time.)
In the background is our big, old barn. Which lately I’ve been looking at as more of a laboratory. The sort of place where I could do this.
(How wicked cool is that?)
Stay tuned …
This photo arrived by email over the weekend, along with a note from the fifth grader who snapped it. “Today I was working in the yard, and I saw a butterfly,” he said, “so I went to go check it out .. I am pretty sure it is a Spicebush Swallowtail …”
He thought I’d like to see it, and he was right. (Thank you, Bob!) In one of those fun happenings that fuels my school visiting, a teacher at Bob’s school independently sent me photos of a froglet she found in her backyard.
Look closely at the world around you, friends. There is so much to see.
(Read that last sentence every morning and you won’t even need me to come to your school. Although if you’d like me to come to your school, you should check out the School Visits page of my website. I added my first 2012-2013 school year events to the calendar this morning!)
Question: Why would a juvenile water snake be hanging out on my nearly-the-highest-point-in-town-and-not-much-water-nearby driveway on Memorial Day weekend?
Answer: I dunno.
But I’m glad he stopped by.
Remember this record? Well, I finally had a chance to hear it, thanks to my friend Doris, who actually owns a record player.
(Thank you, Doris!)
This track list will give you an idea how cool the recording was, but only an idea. It doesn’t tell you, for example, that the commentary accompanying the insect sounds occasionally included nifty experiments. Like the one where the sound recorder, Albro Gaul, set up an audio experiment to prove to listeners that wasps don’t fly in the dark.
Here’s how it worked …
Mr. Gaul put a wasp’s nest in a cage rigged with a microphone. At bedtime, he turned out the lights in the room and went to sleep. The wasps appeared to go to sleep, too, because the buzzing their wings make in flight settled down.
In the middle of the night, Mr. Gaul got up and turned the lights on. The hive remained quiet. So he slapped the cage until the wasps woke up. How could you tell when they were awake? Buzzing. Lots of loud and angry buzzing.
Then Mr. Gaul turned the lights out, and the buzzing stopped. Because, apparently, wasps don’t fly in the dark.
When he turned the lights on again, the loud, angry buzzing resumed.
Again, lights off: silence.
Again, lights on: buzzing.
This was by far my favorite track on the album. Although the “six-footed cadence” of a viceroy butterfly walking was pretty cool, too.
One of my sons has been learning to bird by ear, and he’s inspired me to try it myself. It’s hard! In fact, I’ve found that the few bird sounds I did recognize by ear have been pushed right out of my brain by the flurry of new calls and songs that I’ve been trying to cram in there. Thankfully, our resident catbird (above) has made it his personal mission, it seems, that I not forget his mew call.
If you press that link, scroll down, hit the play arrow on the audio file labeled “mew call”, and repeat for an hour or two, you’ve got the soundtrack to my Wednesday.
Catchy, no?
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/34922807 w=400&h=300]
I’ve spent the past week or so exploring e-books, in preparation for the creation of the enhanced electronic version of TRACKING TRASH. Among the gems I’ve discovered so far is E.O. Wilson’s LIFE ON EARTH. What is available now is only an introduction to the enhanced textbook that will eventually be available, but the introduction is free–and stunning–so I recommend checking it out if you have the devices to do so.
To me, LIFE ON EARTH is an incredibly well-done glimpse into exactly what an enhanced e-book can do. As a codex-clutching skeptic, I thought I’d never be converted. Oh, my. If I’m not converted, I’m at least intrigued. This is not the textbook of old. It includes the same information, but presented in engaging ways that enhance understanding and didn’t for a moment distract me as a reader. There is footage of E.O. Wilson in the field, animations of cellular components, stunning full color image galleries, and more, all accessible (or not) as often as you like. Of all the e-books I’ve explored so far, the textbook genre is the one in which the electronic format makes the most sense.
Also? I think E.O. Wilson is a national treasure. In a short video interview introducing the chapter on small creatures, which you can see above, he explains why he has spent a lifetime studying ants. They are abundant and easy to find, he explains, simple to study and intensely interesting. And then, with a boyish chuckle that melts the part of me that so admires passion, he adds “I honestly cannot understand why most people don’t study ants!”
Me either, Mr. Wilson. Me, either.
Yesterday, in central Massachusetts, the sun came out. In celebration, my daughter and I spent a couple of hours outside after school. She did her homework on the picnic table, I scoped out one of our two apple trees. I’ve been reading a truly inspiring book on tree-watching–SEEING TREES, by Nancy Ross Hugo and Robert Llewellyn–and have decided to take up the sport. Somewhere between noting the gorgeous pattern of the bark (it was spongy and wet, mottled dark and light all over and then sprinkled with moss and lichens) and checking out the leaves, I found some critters. Not surprisingly, I was distracted. Ants. Slugs. And a ladybug! Not just any ladybug, mind you, but one I’ve not yet seen in the wild.
Can you see it up there in the photo?
That, my friends, is a Twice-stabbed Ladybug (Chilocorus stigma). Or maybe its a Once-squashed Ladybug (Chilocorus hexacyclus)*? I will never know for sure, because when I tried to catch it for a closer look at its chromosomes**, it dropped down into the grass. Lost forever. But I did manage this picture, which I’ll submit to Lost Ladybug Project soon.
So, eleven different species on my ladybug life list now. Hooray for the sun, and for tree-watching, and for ladybugs!
* I am not making these names up, I swear. They are from this excellent ladybug field guide.
**Okay, now I’m making things up. The only way to distinguish the two species is to examine the chromosomes, but I had no intention of doing so. I’m not that geeky. Plus, I don’t have the proper microscopes yet.
Photos courtesy of An Open Book Literacy Foundation
Last month, while in Washington, D.C. for the USA Science & Engineering Festival, I was invited to visit the Center City Public Charter School in Center Heights. Sponsored by An Open Book, my morning visit with Ms. Vanessa Elliott’s sixth grade science class was, in a word, spectacular. Ms. Elliott’s students were excited and inquisitive and completely jazzed by the concept of citizen science. And I was completely wowed by their enthusiasm.
The morning would have been a success no matter what, because Dara La Porte from An Open Book had prepared the school, and Ms. Elliott had prepared her students, and because these kids were so very open to rewriting the definition of a scientist. (You know, so that it included them.) But my supremely generous publishers, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers and Houghton Mifflin Children’s Books, pushed the event over the top by donating enough copies of Citizen Scientists and Tracking Trash that each student went home with a copy of their very own.
Do you know how cool that was? It was very cool. I thought so, and so did the students.
Sometimes in the rush to write and edit and perfect and promote and meet deadlines, I lose sight of what I am really trying to do with my work: share stories and ideas that thrill me with people who will be equally thrilled. I’d like to thank each and every student I met at CCPCS last month for reminding me of that. Happy exploring to all of you!
I’m participating in some pretty cool MassAudubon citizen science events in the coming months and hope you’ll consider joining me:
Citizen Science Sampler
Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary
414 Massasoit Road, Worcester, MA
508-753-6087
Saturday, May 19, 1-3pm
In this free event, participants will learn about four important citizen science projects ongoing at Broad Meadow Brook (Monarch Larval Monitoring Project, Oriole Project, and Lost Ladybug Project and a Red-backed Salamander study). After a brief introduction to each, we’ll head out into the field to try our hand at the various projects. I’ll be on hand to talk about Lost Ladybug Project (see below) and to talk about my new book, Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard.
Hunting for Lost Ladybugs
Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary
113 Goodnow Road, Princeton, MA
978-464-2712
Saturday, May 26, 1-3pm
Friday, June 22, 10am-12noon
Saturday, July 28, 10am-12noon
Saturday, August 25, 10am-12noon
Scientists at The Lost Ladybug Project are searching for rare native ladybug species, and you can help find them. Spend the morning with my daughter and I brushing up on ladybug biology, learning to identify common and rare species, and documenting ladybugs here at Wachusett Meadow … then go home and survey the ladybugs living in your backyard. Bring sharp eyes and a digital camera, if you have one. Please dress for meadow hiking, and remember that it’s tick season!
Please note: Registration is required for this event, and fees apply. See this link for details.
Edited on to add: The June ladybugging date has changed from Saturday, June 23 to Friday, June22. I’ve inserted the change above. Hope to see you there!
This is my first spring living in a house that has stood for 205 springs. And while the majority of the days I have lived here so far have been spent rushing from one settling-in activity to another, today I’m working quietly in my office, breaking every now and then to wonder about the people who may have worked quietly in this space before me. Did they love rainy days, squirreled up here above the yard, working in the warm glow of a lamp? Did they gaze out over the back yard and dream of summer vegetables? Spy on a robin’s nest tucked under that perfect old front eave?
I wonder how many baby robins have hatched outside this old window …
