Friday, October 29, 2010

Our Very Own Owl Pellets!

Having purchased and dissected an owl pellet from an educational store,
I was familiar with what owl pellets looked like.
Earlier this week, I asked my son to take our the trash.
He called me excitedly and said that I MUST come
look at this "thing" on the trash can lid.

This is what I found:
See the little bones sticking out? A "wild" owl pellet!

Today, we found another.

I called my home school friend who lives down the street.
She brought two of her children, her rubber gloves, and her science tools.


We proceeded to dissect both pellets.


Jaw bone.

To the best of our ability, we identified two rodents.

I should also add that we live in a
residential area about four blocks from downtown.

Who says you can't do nature study in the city?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Another day. Another geocache.

Our county park systems have put together a geocache in 10 of our county parks.
Our home school group has been gathering to hike the trails together and find them.
I love having it the hike on the schedule as it makes me get out into the beautiful weather
instead of letting it fall to the bottom of my list.

I believe this is a bald-faced hornets nest. Fortunately it was abandoned.
My children sat near the tree and sketched it for their nature journals
while we waited for the rest of our home school group.

Can you see the cache? Me neither. This one was particularly hard.

Here it is!

Beautiful lake you can see from the woods.