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What’s In My Backyard? Projects: Tracking For the introduction to this series, see here It is winter or early spring. The ground is covered with snow or mud and the weather is quite cold. There are no insects or flowers, many birds have migrated to warmer areas and there doesn’t seem like there is much

What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: GoldFinch For the introduction to this series, see here. Here is one of the brightest birds that might visit your yard. Goldfinches love sunflower seeds; if you plant sunflowers, they may become regular visitors. In winter the males lose their bright yellow plumage and become a much drabber

What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: A Golden Northern Bumblebee For the introduction to this series, see here. What’s in my backyard? I found this bumblebee enjoying one of our pea flowers. Bumblebees are attracted to pea and tomato flowers, among others. If you have a vegetable garden, try looking for these large gentle

Meet the Neighbors: Mallard For the introduction to this series, see here. When many people think of ducks, they think of this species. They are common and live everywhere in the US. Unlike many other duck species that nest and raise their ducklings in Canada, mallards nest all over the place. The ducklings hatch out

Meet the Neighbors: Carder Bee For the introduction to this series, see here. This is a carder bee. These bees “card” wool off of fuzzy plants like lambs’ ears to make a nice soft nest. Humans comb sheep’s wool before making it into things. This is called carding. It cleans and aligns the wool fibers.

What’s in my Backyard? Backyard Safari: What Visits Sunflowers? For the introduction to this series, see here. Sunflowers are creature magnets! Today I went on a backyard safari. I spent about half an hour watching a clump of seven sunflowers for interesting creatures. In that short amount of time, all the creatures in the pictures

What’s In My Backyard? Projects: Keeping a Nature Journal For the introduction to this series, see here. Keeping a nature journal is very important if you want to understand the wildlife in your backyard. It can be as simple as writing down what you see in the yard or as complicated as you like it