Goofy Polls May 23, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature.5 comments
So you know how people who are bored make up silly polls to put on Facebook? And they you’re supposed to copy the questions and answer them for yourself and post them? And then your friends are supposed to copy them and erase your answers and put their own answers on and then re-post them?
Here is the Naturalist Poll that I created while bored. You know what to do:
- Have you ever eaten a cuckoo flower (or any other wildflower)?
- Have you ever held a spittle bug on the end of your finger and watched it do the spittle bug dance?
- When was the first time you saw a Bald Eagle?
- Would you rather be pee’d on by a toad or musked by a garter snake?
- Have you ever found an owl pellet in the woods?
- Have you ever watched a dragonfly nymph eat a minnow?
- Have you ever gone out on the first warm rainy night of spring to watch the salamanders do “it”?
- When was the first time you went tent camping?
- When was the most memorable time you slept under the stars?
- Have you ever stayed up all night to watch a lunar eclipse?
- Would you rather go hiking in summer or winter?
- When was the last time you lost your shoe in the mud?
I’m gonna put it on Facebook, too…
Thank you, Jane April 19, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature.add a comment
Look! I’m the featured blog on the Nature Blog Network:
http://natureblognetwork.com/blog/featured-blog-a-passion-for-nature/
Festival of the Trees March 1, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature.add a comment
Hop on over to a very beautiful blog called The voltage Gate by clicking –> here. Heather and Jeremy are hosting this month’s Festival of the Trees (aka FOTT).
What’s FOTT? Glad you asked. You can find out by clicking –> here.
Why do I want you to know? Because, my blog post about “Branches” is one of the featured blogs this month. You can read that post by clicking –> here.
Letters from Home February 27, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature, nothing to do with nature.4 comments
Maddie wanted cowboy boots for Christmas. I didn’t dare buy them and put them under the tree because (a) invariably they wouldn’t fit, and (b) I would never pick out the right style. So, I gave her an IOU and shortly after Christmas, we went to a country-western store so she could pick out her own. That’s when it started.
On the way home, we tuned in a country-western radio station… to make the boots feel at home… yes… that was our actual rationale. We had never really listened to this type of music before, but strangely, we found ourselves liking it. The songs were about homey kinds of things. The singers articulated the words so that I could understand them. The tunes were singable. Who knew?
Since then, I’ve had the radio on that station rather frequently. I even assigned it to button number 2… right next to the NPR button. When I get tired of talk, I can switch to music.
A few days ago, I was listening to the radio on my way to work and found myself wiping away a tear over John Michael Montgomery singing Letters from Home.
I don’t know any servicemen or women… but I found myself wondering what I’d write if I did have a loved one on the other side of the world serving our country and humanity… Probably just everyday stuff… probably just chatty news from our day to day world… And a lot of I-love-you and I’m-proud-of-you and Stay-safe kinds of things. I composed imaginary letters in my head as I drove.
A week or so ago, I got a phone call at work. The local DAR chapter would be having a luncheon and the speaker they had lined up had cancelled. Would I fill in with a program about Audubon? I was happy to oblige. When I arrived, there were note cards at each place setting. After we ate, the mistress of ceremonies explained that their chapter was participating in Project Patriot. She encouraged each of us to write a note to a serviceman or woman. The cards would be collected and sent off in a care package.
Some of the guests at my table had a hard time getting started and weren’t sure what to write. Not me. I knew exactly what to write… because I had practiced it in my head while driving a few days earlier.
I told my mystery person that it was the end of February and it was still snowing. I told how much my black-mutt-dog loves the snow and how she bounds fearlessly through it on the trail of deer and squirrels. I told about tracking mink and river otter and finding my awesome antler… and I said how proud we are of our service personnel and how grateful we are for the work they do.
I don’t know who will get that card or how they will react to receiving chatty bits from a complete stranger… But it felt good to write it.
What a Find! February 23, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in mammals, nature.8 comments
It’s not that I’ve never seen one before. I’ve seen hundreds. Maybe thousands. We have dozens of them at the Nature Center – sitting out for visitors to touch…
It’s just that I had never found one myself in the woods…
Friday was my day: tromping around Spatterdock Pond, looking to see if there were still any signs of the River Otter. (The kids saw slides and rolls there Monday.) I found mink tracks… but no otter signs.
But what’s this? under a tree, tracks leading up to it, the snow all melted down where the animal had slept… and there, poking out of the snow… my very first… (can you guess?)
(more…)
Wind: Abstracts January 2, 2010
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature, photography, weather.1 comment so far
Work work work… December 12, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in children, nature.4 comments
I had to go in to work today… and such a tough task I had…
We’ve set as one of our goals for the year to create a portfolio that describes our monthly “Little Explorers” program and provides some preliminary assessment about its effectiveness. Part of the portfolio is to be photographs of grownups and kids participating in the program together. I had already taken pictures in September. We want to have some from every season. Tough job, but somebody has to do it…
It was the perfect day for it… one of those crisp, crystal, clear-blue, after-the-storm winter days with just enough snow to make it fun, but not enough to hamper driving. The topic for the month was “Greens of the Seasons” and the indoor lesson started with an overview of our common evergreens… Pines, spruces, firs, and hemlock. The kids saw and handled samples of boughs and cones.
Then it was outside to see if we could find them growing on the property (and to play in the snow, of course).
Back inside for snacks…
Then a craft…
Since I took these photos while “on the clock” – does this make me a professional photographer?
Audubon Walk-about November 30, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature, photography.1 comment so far
I don’t get to see Cindy very often. She lives in Colorado. The other day she happened to be on FaceBook when I was and I sent her an instant message. She wrote back, “Hi. I’m in Frewsburg.”
Yay! So she came by Audubon today and we took a walk around Big Pond. And talked. And talked. It was lovely.
We saw lots of birds: Great Blue Herons, Tundra Swans, Canada Geese, Ducks (mallards for sure… probably others, too), and a Bald Eagle. We heard a Kingfisher, but I never saw it. The day was variable… snow sometimes, then rain, then sunshine… We both toted cameras and often took shots of the same scene. Cindy promised to post hers on Facebook… Will you, Cindy?
Here are some of mine:
Several flocks of geese came in while we were walking. It was fun to hear their wings flapping right over our heads, then to watch how they roll out of their flight pattern before descending to the pond.
The colors on gray days seem brighter than on sunny days… why is that?
The dried grasses are so graceful.
The red berries of Winterberry Holly seem to glow from within.
The neighbor’s barn is very colorful.
Long Point State Park September 20, 2009
Posted by Jennifer Schlick in nature, photography.5 comments
Went over to Long Point with Maddie. She wanted to watch the Cross Country race and cheer her friends who were running. She invited me, knowing I “need” to take photos… (Now I can call it homework for class!)
Not all of these (perhaps none of them?) are for my class… but here are a few shots from around the park:
