Saturday, September 28, 2013

Belated Bday Cake

Mikro decorated it for me. That's the Clearwater sailing by the Statue of Liberty on our beloved Hudson River.

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Friday, September 27, 2013

Nature Nearby: The *I [Saw] It on The Grape Vine* Edition

Today there were even stranger things than the Mailbox Mantid hanging out on our grape vine!

This appears to be a spider making an egg case:

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And these weird things, which are new to us, appear to be Grape Tube Gallmaker (Cecidomyia viticola), which you can check out here and here.

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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Nature Nearby: Mantid Makeover

Just had to post this, because I never knew that mantids change eye color at night! In the daytime, her eyes were bright green. But last night...

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So cool!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Nature Nearby: Stickbug Edition.

Last week, we found one of the coolest specimens we have ever encountered: a stick bug in the wild (well, suburbia, anyway!) We had only seen them in museums before this. We brought him indoors, set up a critter keeper, and fed him leaves and spritzed him with water once a day. He went downhill, rapidly. We figured the best thing we could do for him was let him go, so we released him in our yard. It's been several days, and I wondered if he recovered. Went out to check and found him, still near where we released him, but looking much perkier:

sticktsurvives

I moved him a bit further from the mantis...

Nature Nearby: Odd Delivery

This afternoon, I went out to get the mail. I pulled a couple magazines and letters out of the box and stuck my hand in to be sure I got it all. Felt something vaguely like a pine cone and then YOW! Pain! Pulled my hand out. Looked in, only to see this:

mantisinmailbox

That may be the biggest mantis I have ever seen. Seems to be female and just about ready to pop with eggs. So I sent Mikro to get the camera and relocated her (gave her a stick to grab on, and held a magazine under her) to the grape vine by the side of the house.

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Monday, September 16, 2013

September Science

We are going to participate in World Wide Water Monitoring Day on September 18th. Last week we did a practice run.

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Mikro also caught, observed and then released a baby snapping turtle.

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snapperrel

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We are still doing our bug safaris:

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YIP727

YIP728

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YIP729

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spider

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stickbug

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Mikro's new favorite website is: New York Bugs.

And, of course, we are still watching the birds and the rest of the neighborhood critters:

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Tuesday, September 3, 2013