Showing posts with label backyard nat geo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backyard nat geo. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2013

Great Backyard Bird Count

The boys and I had a wandering adventure on Saturday. We saw owls and hawks, did reconnaissance for future adventures, made a friend and pet a red corn snake!

But before I tell you about that, time is running out for another event you should know about.

If you like birds, have fifteen minutes today and are willing to enter a few pieces of data into an Internet database, I have an activity for you.

It's the Great Backyard Bird Count!

This event takes place every February. For four days, participants take at least fifteen minutes to count the birds in their backyard. They enter the number of each species they see into the GBBC website.

Today is the last day, so the boys and I set up a little observation station - laptop, field guides, notebook, coffee - in front of the patio door in our kitchen.


We recorded a couple of turkey vultures circling overhead, a tufted titmouse on our suet feeder and a juvenile downy woodpecker.

Normally, we have more birds in a fifteen minute period. I suspect the lack had something to do with our yard's version of the black death (our cat was out and about).

Matt snapped the photo on the right of one of our visitors.

What birds can you see?



Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Wildlife Wednesday: Weird Moth-like Thing

That's its official name.


Originally, I thought it was a hummingbird moth and that still might be the case. At least with this fellow on the top.  He/she looks a lot like this moth on the Bug Guide, which lists the common name as such.


I posted this second picture to Project Noah and someone commented it was not a hummingbird moth. The distinct stripes mean it's a normal sphinx moth, specifically Amphion Floridensis.

May I remind you I got a "D" in ninth grade biology?  Therefore, my final label for this critter is: "weird moth-like thing."

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Resources

What would I do without the BugGuide?  The guide can be found at http://bugguide.net and for the record, states that both of the above are members of the sphinx moth family.

Project Noah - we've just started playing with this. I have the app on my phone. The website describes it as "a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere." I'll write more about it when we've had more experience with it.