Saturday, April 23, 2011

Saturday + Sunshine = Nature Study

For the past few days the weather has been cooler, rainy, cloudy and misty. Today was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine that just called for being outdoors. First thing was to let the baby chicks out in their play area and they were able to stay out for about five hours. Our study of caterpillars and butterflies has really ignited an interest for Grace. All three of our painted ladies have emerged and will be released tomorrow. We felt releasing them on Easter Sunday was very fitting. Now she is on the hunt for more caterpillars to raise into butterflies or moths. We went down to a neighbor's house that has an incredible yard and creek for nature study. In all that area (probably 3 acres at least) we could on find one caterpillar. A very common one at that. The Eastern Tent Caterpillar which will build a cocoon and turn in to a moth. Grace is still going to try.


There were lots of this specimen of butterfly on the Yellow flower. Very hard to photograph, very active. We looked up the butterfly in our field guide and discovered that this guy or girl is a Buckeye.




We still have this wildflower to look up and the bottom photo of a plant. Looking forward to more hikes and nature studies for this spring and summer.
















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