Science Snippets Ocean Friends In the Indian Ocean, there are many strange things. One of them is the relationship between the Randall’s Pistol Shrimp and their friends the gobies. The shrimp are only a couple of inches long, and they are striped red and white like candy canes. They have large claws, which they use […]
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
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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
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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
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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
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Why do leaves change color in the fall? And why do different trees turn different colors? All leaves contain chlorophyll. Chlorophyll reflects green light making leaves look green. As the days shorten and the nights cool, trees form a layer of cork cells in the stem of their leaves. This causes the leaf to die
Why is summer hotter than winter? Summer is hotter than winter because Earth is tilted on its axis. The northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun in summer and away from the sun in winter. The same is true for the southern hemisphere except that summer and winter come at different times of year than
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.
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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
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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
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