The Life-Cycle of A Gulf Fritillary (another forgotten post)

I can't believe I never posted these pictures! This is from the summer of 2009. We had so much fun observing the life cycle of these butterflies. We also saw the many predators that were happy to have so many caterpillars and butterflies in the yard.



Mating Gulf Fritillary Butterflies

Butterfly egg on host plant





Host plant for the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly: Passion Flower Vine



This spider set up shop right by the host plant and enjoyed finding baby caterpillars to eat.

This is a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar that has reached full size and is ready to enter the chrysalis phase.

Chrysalis adorning our fence.

Hatching butterflies!

Transformation Complete!



Sipping Nectar from our garden Zinnias



Butterfly Predator: Preying Mantis





Where did October go? (another forgotten post!)

October has flown by! This year we have been involved in a local Soccer league, and it has turned out to be so much fun.

The boys have loved it and so have we. It has led to numerous games in the backyard with Mark and I proving that we are not as young as we think we are.

Our littlest one is now almost 10 months old. He is all over the place and if he can get his hands on a crayon he is thrilled.

How They Have Grown! (old post that I forgot to publish)

Lunar Eclipse (another old post that I forgot to publish!)

When I found out that the eclipse was going to be in the middle of the night, I asked myself if I really wanted to tell the boys. I knew that if I did chances were that I would be setting my alarm for a ridiculous hour and dragging myself out of bed for at least an hour. Yet how could I let it pass? Needless to say I set the alarm. We had a perfectly clear sky and it was a strangely beautiful eclipse.

I thought this picture of the boys captured their sleepiness and the cold. They were so cold, but very happy to have been able to see it. We also took a chance and called their grandmother to see if she had stayed up to watch it and sure enough she was watching.

Rainbow Trout- Outdoor Hour Challenge- July

Rocky Mountain National Park in Spring (2013 Nature goals)

This post is a little late, but better late than never! One of our nature goals for 2013 is to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park every season. Here are some pictures from our late Spring visit. The boys enjoyed getting their Junior Ranger badges on this trip. They learned about the 4 ecosystems in the park. The riparian (wetland) ecosystem, montane ecosystem, subalpine ecosystem, and alpine tundra ecosystem. Last week we visited the park again. The primary difference that I saw was in the alpine tundra. Summer pictures coming soon!

Alpine Tundra

Alpine Tundra

Alpine Tundra- It was extremely windy up here. So much so that we had to yell to hear each other.

  

The boys are in the subalpine ecosystem, but they are looking down on the montane and riparian ecosystems.

Riparian ecosystem

Montane ecosystem

Montane ecosystem---We loved the velvet antlers!

Rocky Mountain Wildflowers- Outdoor Hour Challenge June 2013

This months Handbook of Nature Study Newsletter was Wildflowers and Weeds. Living in a new place makes our nature study feel new. We are accustomed to seeing "old friends" when we go out to look at wildflowers and most everything we see is totally unfamiliar! We did find one "old friend" on our wildflower outings- the Indian paintbrush. Purple was the most predominant flower color. We found all the colors, on the Wildflower Color Hunt bookmark from the June newsletter, except light pink. Here is a look at what we found.

 Rocky Mountain Phlox Phlox multiflora

 Yellow Pea Thermopsis rhombifolia

 Unknown

 Vase Flower Clematis hirsutissima

 Subalpine Larkspur Delphinium barbeyi

 Lupine

Indian Paintbrush

Arrowleaf balsamroot Balsamorhiza sagittata

Dusky Beardtongue Penstemon whippleanus 

 Unknown

 Prickly Rose Rosa acicularis

Unknown 

Lupines and Arrowleaf Balsamroot

These were all found very near our home. We still have some work to do on identifying a few flowers. Along with looking at our local flowers, we did take a drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park and saw some very low lying flowers at the Alpine Tundra visitor center. I thought that we got a picture, but have been disappointed that I have not been able to find it. The wind was blowing so hard up there and the temperature was rather chilly, so it is possible that I didn't get a photo. Next time I will be sure to take a picture to share these amazing wildflowers that are able to survive in such a climate.

Western Tanager

We spotted two of these beautiful birds on our recent hike.

Mountain Ball Cactus

Nature Study Goals for 2013

I really like Barb's idea to have goals for this years Nature Study. I feel a little overwhelmed with all my options since we are living in a new area with countless things to explore. I know we will do spontaneous Nature Study as we go along, but I also want to be purposeful. I am going to follow in Barb's footsteps and make a few goals for this year.

Our Nature Study Goals for 2013

1. Visit Rocky Mountain National Park in each season.
2. Learn about our local conifers.
3. Learn 5 new birds and draw them in our nature journals.
4. Observe a moose (from a safe distance!) and draw it in our journals.

5. Go on a rock hunt once the snow is melted.

6. Learn 3 new wildflowers and draw them in our journals.

Outdoor Hour Challenge- Birds!

I love birds! They are easy to attract and usually they are not too hard to identify. We first started watching birds as a family about 6 years ago. We simply hung a feeder where we could see it from our kitchen table. At that time we lived in the middle of a large city and we didn't get a great variety of birds, but we did have an occasional surprise. One day we came home to find an american kestrel trying to steal a baby bird from its nest, and another time we had a pair of monk parakeets land on our fence!

Later we moved to an area in rural Texas and discovered many more birds to our delight. Our favorite was the painted bunting, which was always exciting to see.

Just this past November we moved to Colorado and we have a whole new host of birds to learn. It has been very enjoyable to hear the boys call out, "Look, a new bird!"  So far we have identified a stellar jay, common redpolls, black-billed magpies, mountain chickadees, black capped chickadees, gray crowned rosy finches, and bald eagles. We do have a couple that we haven't identified yet.


Black Billed Magpie



Inspiration Corner

This month for the Outdoor Hour Challenge, I set up a little area with some of our bird books just to give us a reminder of what we are focusing on. My youngest really loves to read, Bird Talk over and over again. We have had the most success in bird watching right in our backyard. We are attracting mostly redpolls and chickadees. Many days we do have a huge flock of gray crowned rosy finches that fly in all at once and then rush off just as quickly.



Gray Crowned Rosy Finches



Last week I thought we would take a trail walk and listen for birds and see if we could see any that were not frequenting our feeder. But to our surprise we didn't see or hear one single bird!! The only thing we heard was crunching snow.



We did find tracks in the snow that we are going to have to identify.



What are these?



 Bald Eagles





A few days later, to our delight, we saw two bald eagles in a tree as we were driving down the highway. We pulled over and I tried to get a picture with my phone. The pictures are not so great, but at least we got a good enough shot that we can copy it into our journals if we want.



Speaking of journals, here is a sample from one of the boys who enjoys drawing birds.



 The boys keep a life list in the Kids Bird Log that Barb mentioned on her blog, Handbook of Nature Study, and I keep my own list in my nature journal. Birdwatching is something everyone in the family can enjoy and it is something you can do wherever you are. We are looking forward to spring to see what new feathered friends we can attract to our feeder.