Loree Burns – Page 39

June 9, 2009April 25, 2015

I ♥ Research

Oi, what a ladybug hunt we had! Here’s the loose math: 27 intrepid ladybug spotters, 14 heavy-duty sweep nets, 7 buckets for sorting bugs, 5 scientists, 5 teachers, 1 hour, and … (cue the dramatic music, please) …

7 ladybug species!

The fourth-grade citizen scientists Ellen and I shadowed were amazingly dedicated field workers and didn’t let wet clover, threatening clouds, or sudden intense sunshine slow them down. They captured, photographed, and released 7-spotted, pink-spotted, polished, checker-spotted, glacial, Asian multi-colored, and three-banded ladybugs. Not bad for a day’s work.

Ellen and I are now back at our hotel. I am typing up notes like a madwoman. She is reviewing photos like a madwoman. We have decided we have the most perfect jobs ever…

June 9, 2009April 25, 2015

Hello from Ladybug Land!

Photographer Ellen Harasimowicz and I are in Ithaca, New York learning about The Lost Ladybug Project. Yesterday’s highlights included a visit to Dr. John Losey’s ladybug lab–complete with a peek in the aphid room–and a ladybug collecting trip.

Eric Denemark, a former student of Dr. Losey’s, brought Ellen and I to a nearby clover field and showed us how to sweep out ladybugs. That’s Eric up above, sharing ladybugs he found with Ellen. I got to try my hand at collecting too, but those rather funny images are on Ellen’s camera. Suffice to say that it is easy and enjoyable work, so long as you are okay with thigh-high clover fields and nets full of interesting creatures.

Ladybuggin’ tip of the day: when you are done sweeping, let your net sit open for a moment … that way bees and other stinging insects you may have swept IN can fly OUT. This is especially important if you plan to do this:

The weather here is threatening today’s plans, so please send sunny, ladybug friendly thoughts this way. If the rain holds off I’ll have more to share tomorrow.

June 8, 2009April 25, 2015

Ladybuggin’

I’m leaving in a few hours on the final leg of a year-long, four-leg citizen science research journey …. and I AM VERY EXCITED!

I’ll be shadowing Dr. John Losey, ladybug scientist at Cornell University, as he hunts for lost ladybug species.

Curious, are you?

Well, then, go listen to Dr. Losey explain his super-cool citizen science project . After that, you’ll probably want to get outside and find some ladybugs yourself. Have fun … and be sure to bring your camera!

Then again, it is Monday. If all this sounds too taxing, then just have yourself a short game of Ladybug Pacman and rest up until I get back. I will have tons and tons and tons to tell you then …

June 7, 2009April 25, 2015

The Viburnum Mysteries, Part 3

It’s a boy!

No, wait, it’s a girl!

Ack! Truth is, I don’t know which it is. But our mystery viburnum eggs have hatched, and the teeny tiny caterpillars (less than half a centimeter!) look just as we’d hoped: greenish with a large, dark horn on the rear end. The horn is further evidence that these are, indeed, the caterpillar of a hummingbird moth. I don’t know exactly which species, but time will tell.

They hatched sometime overnight and seem to have eaten their egg cases. I put some newly clipped viburnum leaves into the tank and am hoping the little cats will move over to those fresher leaves on their own. Sadly, I will be away from my new babies for a few days … but my human kids have promised to take good care of them. More pics soon!

* For a better view of our little cat, click on the image above; it should enlarge. The ruler is in centimeters.

June 6, 2009April 25, 2015

Six Things on Saturday

1. I’m feeling better, thanks to some extra rest and these magnificent
thank you notes from my friends at Sage School.

2. My heavily monitored mystery viburnum eggs have still not hatched.
What are they waiting for?

3. I did some amphibian monitoring work this week as part of my
research for the citizen science book. Taking notes in the dark
(which is when you monitor frog calls) is hard!

4. I’m heading to Ithaca, New York on Monday to do a final series
of interviews for the citizen science book … and I will be
participating in an official Ladybug Hunt!

5. The amazing Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray has invited me to be
part of a panel of women writers who want to talk deeply about
girls and books and reading. Please join us!

6. That end-of-the-schoolyear-kickoff-to-summer craziness known
around here as the Little League Baseball Playoffs begins today.
Go Ben! Go Sam! Go Pirates!

PHOTOS: Photo 4 courtesy of Colleen Mondor; all others © Loree Griffin Burns

June 3, 2009April 25, 2015

The Viburnum Mysteries, Part 2

Okay, two blog posts in one day has got to have one or two readers wondering what gives. This: I’m sick. I’ve tried writing (too exhausting), reading (also too exhausting) and sleeping (strangely impossible). Blogging is … just right. And so I’ve decided to fill you in on the Viburnum Mysteries.

On Sunday my kids and I found several mysterious creatures on our viburnum bushes. We suspect the pearly green, roundish ones are the eggs of a super interesting species of moth, but can’t be sure until they hatch. To ensure we don’t miss the blessed event, we’ve moved two of the eggs indoors. How? Well, I’ll tell you …

I clipped a stem with several leaves—including the leaf supporting the egg—and placed it in a plastic stem holder. You know, the sort you get when you buy a flower arrangement? They are usually green in color and conical in shape., florists fill the plastic base with water and slip a stem through a hole in the rubber cover in order to keep stems alive longer. Here’s a picture:

As you can see, I placed these stem holders into a yogurt container to keep them upright. (Before you decide to skip a step and place the stems directly into a large container of water, realize this: caterpillars cannot swim!) I then put the yogurt container and stems into an old fish tank. The tank is here in my office where I can check on the eggs regularlyconstantly.

I left a few eggs outside on the viburnum bush … I call these my control group. Will moving eggs indoors prevent them from hatching? Or slow down hatching? I’m not sure. But keeping an eye on my outdoor control eggs as well as my indoor eggs will help me answer these questions. In a stroke of brilliance that hit me only after I spent an extremely long time trying to find my outdoor control eggs this morning, I’ve tied ribbons around the relevant viburnum stems to make locating the eggs easier:

Can you see the black ribbon? And the little green egg? They are both in the picture, honest.

After three days of waiting and watching, I can’t tell you much. My indoor eggs and my outdoor eggs are quiet and nothing visible to the naked eye—or even a magnifying-glassed eye—is happening. Sort of makes me wish I had a microscope; then I might be seeing this.

Anyway, stay tuned …

June 3, 2009April 25, 2015

Lincoln School

Last year I offered a free school visit raffle for participants in International Coastal Cleanup events in Massachusetts. There were 2900 entrants (hooray for the Bay State and its dedicated ocean lovers!) and the grand prize winner was Emily, a seventh grader from Brookline. Yesterday I visited her school.

As it turns out, I have been to the William Lincoln School once before. But if ever there was a school that I wanted to visit again, this was it. First of all, last year’s trip was a bit unsettling for me. Somehow I managed to leave my computer bag (with my laptop inside!) sitting on the floor of my garage when I left for the visit. Once I recovered from the shock and embarrassment of this oversight, I did my presentations sans slideshow. All went well, and the Lincoln students and staff were amazingly kind about my gaffe. Even still, I was more than thrilled to go back this year and show them my best.

A highlight of this year’s visit was the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Zobel’s eight grade science students, who have spent a good deal of this year exploring ecosystems and sharing them in book format with younger students. What a treat to talk about the process of writing nonfiction for young people with writers in the thick of that very process! I look forward to reading some of these books when they are finished.

Many thanks to Emily, COASTSWEEPer extraordinaire, and Sue Zobel, who coordinated my visit. In honor of Emily and Sue and the entire Lincoln community, I’m going to officially kick off the International Coastsweet Get-The-Word-Out season:

This year’s International Coastal Cleanup will be held worldwide on September 19, 2009; you can find an event near you at the ICC website. Massachusetts residents can visit the COASTSWEEP website, where 2009 ICC events in the Bay State will soon be listed.

June 1, 2009April 25, 2015

The Viburnum Mysteries, Part 1

Most of this past weekend was sunny and warm here in Massachusetts, so I spent a lot of time in the yard. I was supposed to be weeding, but I kept finding interesting things to photograph. During one of my photography breaks I noticed our three Viburnum bushes looked a little, er, chomped:

It didn’t take long to find the chompers:

There were hundreds of them! Even though they were probably not good for my Viburnum bushes, I have to admit feeling a little jazzed at the idea of some butterfly or moth leaving us a giant brood of caterpillars to watch and enjoy. I took lots of photos so that I could properly identify the species later.

Excitement mounted when my sharp-eyed assistant spotted this on an un-chomped Viburnum leaf:

An egg! Look on the top leaf, just right of the center vein at about the center of the leaf. That is an egg! What kind of egg? I’m not sure. But it fed our butterfly dreams. Before the sun set we’d added this clue to our pile of study images:

Certain species of wasp lay their eggs in the safety and relative abundance of a caterpillar body. The eggs hatch and the wasp larvae actually feed on the caterpillar, slowly eating it alive. Gross, I know. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the spectacle once, and it looked as we might have a chance. Plus? This larger caterpillar would surely help us identify the species of insect we were dealing with.

Later, armed with our photographs, several insect field guides, and high-speed internet access, we set out to discover what was living in our Viburnum. It took several hours, mostly because I assumed that all the species we’d found were related. They are not. (Not to self: stop making assumptions!) It seems we are dealing with two species; let’s get the bad news over with first, shall we?

This is the larvae of the recently imported and truly nasty Viburnum Leaf Beetle. Ick. They eat their fill of Viburnum leaves, then crawl down to the base of the plant and pupate in the soil. The adult beetle eventually emerges, flies into the bush and continues to feed on Viburnum leaves. The final insult comes in the fall, when females lay hundreds of Viburnum Leaf Beetle eggs in the woody stems of the shrub … completing the life cycle and setting my poor Viburnums up for an even nastier spring next year.

(The silver lining here is that there is actually a citizen science project tracking the spread of Viburnum Leaf Beetles. And I am now an official contributor! Funny how things work sometimes, eh?)

The truly good news? The eggs we found are not Viburnum Leaf Beetle eggs. And we could find only a few butterfly or moth species that lay eggs on Viburnum leaves in the Northeast. It is possible that we have found eggs that will hatch caterpillars that will eventually pupate into this:

And we Burnses intend to find out for sure:

Stay tuned!

May 29, 2009April 25, 2015

Paxton Center School

Photo by Andrea Thackeray

I was invited to the most amazing luncheon yesterday. It was with the fiesty bunch of fifth and sixth graders in the picture above, readers and writers from Paxton Center School in Massachusetts. I spoke to their classmates in large groups earlier and later in the day, but it was my time with the lunch bunch that I will remember most…

As readers, we talked for a long time about our favorite books and favorite authors: Lois Lowry and Ellen Klages and J.K. Rowling and Pseudonymous Bosch and Linda Urban and so many others. The excitement around that table as we talked about books would have made every single author mentioned proud … and each of us left with a couple new titles on our Must Read lists.

As writers, we talked about strategies for working on our craft. It turns out that finding time to write is just as hard for eleven and twelve year olds as it is for forty year olds! We shared stories of rejection (my heart still goes out to you, Emily!) and triumph (hooray for completed stories!) and agreed that despite all the pitfalls, finding time to write our stories is worth the effort.

Many thanks to my new friends at Paxton Center School, and to their teachers, for inviting me over for the day. Special thanks to Alice, who sent a letter I’ll cherish for always.

Happy reading! Happy writing!

May 28, 2009April 25, 2015

Time and Words

It is rainy and wet here. Very rainy. Very wet. My weekly gig as Garden Apprentice was postponed until the skies brighten, which means I found myself today and yesterday with what I always claim to need: more hours in the day. Sweet!

I spent yesterday’s extra time reading and pondering words. For reasons that are not completely clear to me, I have become intensely focused on words. This sounds funny, I am sure, because I am a writer … of course I focus on words. But this is different. Suddenly my thoughts are snagging on random words, and I find myself writing them down (I am an incurable notebook scribbler) and staring at them, wondering about the words they are connected to and how I might use those connections in creative and intentional ways. This new word fetish led directly to my most recent completed work, a picture book whose structure is entirely dependent on the relationship between the nineteen words that tell the story. (More on that one day soon, I hope. Fingers crossed!)

Yesterday’s striking words, found while reading and scribbled in my notebook, were:

weft

dwine

surplusage

vespine

Say them out loud. Aren’t they lovely?

Weft is a woven fabric, and the sentence I read was this: “Such indeed is the economy of nature that secret relations and astonishing concordances exist throughout the whole vast weft of things.”

::swoon::

Dwine means to languish, waste away, or fade.

Surplusage is archaic, but means, I presume, a surplus. (Yes, I am reading old Fabre books again.)

And, finally, vespine: of, or pertaining to, wasps. This one set off an avalanche of word activity in my notebook. There are a lot of ‘ine’ adjectives that I dig: bovine, porcine, feline, canine, equine. I doodled as many as I could think of, and then spent an hour digging for more: corvine (of, or pertaining to, crows) and anguine (of, or pertaining to, snakes) and, my favorite of favorites, myrmecophagine (of, or pertaining to, anteaters!).

What will come of my word lists? Who knows. Perhaps nothing. But I realized today that the time to play and ponder words is a luxury I should give myself more often. I am, after all, a writer.

So, what words do YOU love?