Plants that Eat Animals

The title of this post makes me think of the threatening song of the movie, Jaws.  You know, dum dum. Dum dum. Dum.

But in real life, plants that eat animals only eat insects. Well, we learned that a few of these plants do actually eat small frogs and lizards, but that is the extent of it.

There are more than 200 types of these plants throughout the world. We live in South Alabama near the Gulf Coast, and several types of pitcher plants and the sundew plant are native to this area. These meat eating plants are threatened by development and bog draining. There are a few nature preserves in the area where we can see these amazing and interesting plants in their natural habitats.

Because we purchased several science kits about plants, we have been studying meat eating plants for science this month.

We planted our Venus Fly Trap from DuneCraft and are waiting for it to germinate. According to the information on the package, it takes approximately 3 weeks for them to germinate.

Here are some pictures from our latest foray into the Pitcher Plant Bog.

Pitcher plant. The sphere behind the pitcher is the flower
this plant produces in spring. 

An overview of pitcher plants with some of their yellow flowers. 

The yellow and red flowers you see are 2 different types of
pitcher plants. Both are native to this area, but the yellow one
is more widely found. 

Another overview of the pitcher plants in the bog. 

A close up of some young pitcher plants just emerging.

We have spent a great deal of time at this bog over the years. It is a place we return to at different times of year. In every season, it is a different color. I find the place to be peaceful. It is one of my favorite places on earth. Lucky for me I live near enough to my favorite place on earth to visit it every season.

Here are a few pictures from earlier seasons.

My kids at the entrance to the bog in September 2012

Fall overview of the bog. If you look closely, you can see
purple flowers throughout.

Overview of the bog in early summer (around here that starts in
May). Notice how the predominant color is white. 

A close up on what the pitcher plants look like in early summer. 

Some other predominant plants in the bog in early summer.

My children at the entrance to the bog on 9-20-11

An overview of the bog that same day in September 2011

OHC Reptiles

We are following along with Barb's Handbook of Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge for this month.

We have been keeping a running list of reptiles we have seen this month. We have seen lots of anole lizards. We are already on our second page of the running list. Below, you can see some of the other reptiles we have seen this month.

This is the smallest tortoise I have ever seen. It was in our back yard. 

American Alligator.

This is a tortoise that burrows under sand for its home. 

Numerous turles.

A skink.

I am submitting this article for the Outdoor Hour Challenge with Barb at Handbook of Nature Study.

We Saw the Most Unusual Bug

I have never seen anything like this before, but the kids and I have seen 2 of them in the last week.

The first time I didn't have my camera, but when we went to the library today there was another one. I had the camera in the car and went back to get it.

I don't know how well you can see it from my pictures, but the wings are white with black dots (like a dalmation) and the body is orange and black. Amazing.

When we looked it up online, it seems to be a Sand Marsh Moth.

Today was a great day at our house!

Look what the Fed Ex truck brought us!

A score from eBay! (All of this was only $35, including shipping.) On the Dunecraft official website, the products shown range from $19.95 to $24.99 each. 

Though we plan to participate in the Reptile Study for Handbook of Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge, I think tomorrow we start a whole study on some cool plants. The kids are so excited and so am I!

The Sensory Dome has plants for each of the five senses.

My son is very interested in studying the Venus Fly Trap.

They all look really cool and fun.

Our Month Studying Birds

I made a list of the 4 things that I most wanted our family to learn in a previous blog post.

We have a feeder, and the first priority was to see if we could identify even one of the birds we get on a regular basis to our feeder. Jimmie from Jimmie's Collage has a great resource that lists a set of 18 common feeder birds for Tennessee. (They work great for Mobile, Alabama, too.) I printed the Backyard Bird Flashcards and we have kept them by the feeder window this month. It has really helped us identify our regular feeder birds.

An Eastern Towhee that enjoys kicking around
in the mulch under our azaleas. (He also
enjoys being under the feeder.)

A house finch eating sunflower seeds from the feeder.
I love his pinkish head. 

We have also identified goldfinches and black capped chickadees at the feeder and in our pear tree several times this month. I haven't gotten any pictures of those. All of these birds have been identified using the flashcards we printed from Jimmie's site. Thank you, Jimmie!

Another goal was to go on a hike to the Dauphin Island Audubon Nature Trail. We went on February 6th. We had a great time, but we are really out of shape. It has been over 2 months since we have hiked, because I have been under the weather.

A shore bird we saw on our hike. (Is it a sandpiper?) One
of the books we read said that sandpipers and plovers are
the most commonly seen shore birds, but identifying them
closer than that is very difficult. 

These little birds walked down the shoreline together. They
look somewhat like the plovers I found online. 

 Our third goal was to learn some of the birds of prey by their shadows. We weren't able to do that exactly, but we watched Pale Male on DVD from the library (twice). It was very interesting. We also read City Hawk: The Story of Pale Male. It is the same story, just written as a children's book. I got so interested in the story that I read Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park (Vintage Departures) to myself for my own enjoyment.

I feel pretty good about what we have accomplished in our bird study this month. We are still working on the study, but may not report on it again.

I am submitting this blog entry to


Check out Barb's site for other great nature adventures.

Pecan Tree -- The End

Since I have lived here, I have taken numerous pictures of the pecan tree across the street. I don't know exactly what I liked about the tree so much. I just liked the way that it seemed to write with its limbs across the skyline. Twice before (here and here), I have posted pictures of the tree at different times.

This morning, I woke up and the sky was so beautiful, so pink, and I thought, "I should take a picture of the tree." But I didn't.

While we were eating lunch, we saw this:

What?!?! 

My son wanted us to call the cops. I tried to explain that the homeowners had the right to do what they wished with the tree; it is on their land. My middle daughter was almost in tears. "What about the birds? They love that tree. They use that tree," she said.

 My youngest said, "That's it. I'm not going to be your friend, any more," as she looked out the window. And she added, "The birds need that."

My son said, "They should lumber jacks breathe eliminators."

It took them all of 15 minutes to chop it down and grind out the stump.

The spot sans tree. The view captures my feelings exactly. 

Valentine's Boxes

My children painting their Valentine's Boxes

We are going to attend a homeschool Valentine's Party next week. We have to have Valentine boxes for the children to collect the Valentine's they receive. I decided that today was the day to make them.

For each Valentine box, I turned a cracker box inside out and re-glued it. I placed books on top of the glued boxes and let them dry. Then I closed one end and folded in the other end. That prep work had to be done before the kids got involved.

Today, I let the kids paint their boxes.

Here are the finished products