Happy St. Patrick's Day

Kev and I have been married 17 years! (And we've known each other for 28 years! Now that makes me feel old...)

We celebrated early on Saturday with dinner at the lovely Headless Horseman restaurant in Sleepy Hollow.

Nature Center Scavenger Hunt and Leaves from my Sketchbook

The dinosaur in the preceding sketch had a staring role in a Mikro tale:

When I'm in a rocket ship going to space, I'm gonna wave bye bye to the earth. Then I'm gonna look at the moon through the window. Hey mama, you need this pointy piece for the front and then a tube shaped part for the middle and two triangles for the back. I wanna see all kinds of planets but you know what we gotta watch out for? Meteors! I'm gonna say hello to space. When we land on the moon I'm gonna look at everything on the moon. Mama, why is the moon made of rocks instead of cheese? I wanna bring a toy into the rocket. I'm gonna bring this allosaurus to outer space. This is a friendly allosaurus. This is Omarosa's youngster. She's going to take care of it. Omarosa's going on holiday because she's leaving our house for a little, but she will come back. She will fly back to earth. First she has to go to the beach. Then she goes in the woods and then she goes to the restaurant to get some yummy meat for her young. Then she's going up to the moon. Do you know why Omarosa's coming back? Because she knows that we love her!

Homeschool Nature Class: Ornithology

Today, we learned about identifying characteristics of birds, and visited several different habitats. We saw long eared owls in the woods, gulls near the river, and songbirds in the "edge" (the shrubbery between grass and trees).













We also saw the first robins of spring, and several varieties of hawks.
After class, the kids played tag and red rover.



Credit for the owl shot belongs to Christina from our homeschool group, who took the shot with my camera while I was busy Mikro-wrangling.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

Click on the picture to see the animated gif... and watch Mikro get joyful soaked.

Some Linky Love-- The Hudson River

NYDEC Hudson River Lesson Plans
The Hudson River Estuary Program
Hudson River Almanac
Quadricentennial of Hudson and Champlain Voyages,(which is in 2009. Not a lot up yet, but check back as it gets closer...)
New Netherland Museum Half Moon replica ship
Journal of Hudson's Voyage, available as a pdf from New Netherland Museum
New Netherland Curriculum Materials, available from New Netherland Museum at a reasonable price
Historic River Towns Calendar of Events
Historic Hudson Valley
Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area
Hudson River Valley Institute

Leap Day at the Central Park Zoo

The Zoo had a special frog program for Leap Year today, with frog lectures and crafts.





Highlights of our visit: The penguins were amazingly interactive; Mikro playing with a six year old girl at the bats exhibit; Mikro conquering his fear of the big spiderweb climb net.





















After the zoo, we enjoyed Central Park's carousel, the 59th Street pond, wandering the park, and the Dairy and Gift Shop, where Mikro got some books on NYC wildlife, and some bug and lizard related toys.

Feeder Watch

Today I discovered the squirrels have broken my angel bird feeder. Her wings are snapped off. Of course, this did not keep the squirrels from feasting...



They shared, reluctantly, with a cute little chipmunk, who kept running onto our stoop, and seemed to know it was warmer inside the house. Every time I poked the camera out the door, he approached as if seeking to join us inside.



The birds were far more skittish, and I only managed to get a photo of a dark eyed junco.



Signs of spring are starting to appear. My daffodils are coming up, and there are buds on the swamp maple in front of my house.

A Buggy Day at Nature Class and at Home

Today at Nature Class, we looked for signs of overwintering insects. Surprisingly, we saw a few active bugs in addition to frass, and holes in leaves and bark. There was a tiny spider, a mite, several springtails and a pillbug.



There was another bald eagle perched in a tree overlooking the Hudson. Too obscured by a tangle of branches to get a good photo, but still awe inspiring to stand 20 feet away from such a creature! I would never have imagined that seeing these majestic birds would become almost routine. It's amazing how far we've come since the 1970s, when DDT had depleted the population in New York down to one nesting pair, whose eggs inevitably cracked. There's a wonderful web page describing the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's very successful efforts to restore the eagle population at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9380.html

And speaking of the DEC, they have launched a kid's magazine, which is available free online at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/education/40248.html The first issue is up, and has features on being a wildlife detective and animal tracks in winter, (and they have a grown-up's version, which looks very cool and is extremely reasonable to subscribe to (and currently on sale!) at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/40467.html) and then there's the free literature on New York State Wildlife, which is just perfect for a unit study, methinks... http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/4791.html

After we got home, I was watching birds at the feeders when I noticed some promising lumps on the branches of a leafless bush silhouetted against the neighbor's white fence. I ran out to investigate when there was a lull in the bird activity, and confirmed my suspicions-- two additional praying mantis egg cases. One was near the tip of a branch, so I clipped it and dropped it into a mesh bug enclosure, then hung it up where neither elderly cat nor young entomologist can get to it without help. Can't wait to see if they hatch! Neither can Mikro, who is doing a bug watch version of "Are we there yet?"



Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet? Have they hatched yet?

Ad infinitum...

Food Allergies

We just got reminded the hard way about getting too complacent about rechecking labels of familiar foods for possible ingredient changes. O'Soy yogurt now has a warning that the active cultures are dairy based, which we discovered after Mikro broke out in hives and developed stomach pain. Sigh.

Feeder Watch