Monday, September 23, 2013

At the Beach

I saved Barb's Handbook of Nature Study newsletter from 6/1/2012. It covered ways to do nature study at the beach.

I never had a chance to use it until this September. We took a vacation to the beach. I used almost all the ideas I got from that newsletter, but I would only like to share with you one small aspect of the trip.

On the grid, one of the suggestions was to list 3 living creatures you saw at the beach. We made a list of living creatures we saw during our week long vacation.

Hermit Crab

Tiny Frog

Willet(?) I searched Google and that seems to be what
this is. He was very near us, used to people. 

Sandpiper

Skink

The first time for us to spot a tricolored heron. Great blue herons
are very common around here, even flying over the house from time to time, but
this one is different. It was an exciting find!
The skink was found during a hike in a nearby National Wildlife Refuge we had decided to visit since we have so much fun hiking locally.

I found it very exciting to identify 3 new birds. They are probably common birds, but they were new to us.

We also saw 2 dolphins breaching the water parallel to the shoreline. I was unable to get a photo.

I am submitting this to the Handbook of Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge.

2 comments:

  1. Making a new ID is always a thrill. Looks like you've been having some good outings! Hooray!

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    1. I agree. I really was thrilled to make these new ID's for the birds. When we started this journey, we knew NOTHING. We couldn't even tell the feeder birds apart. Now we are able to distinguish more and more things. The kids and I looked at the heron and said, "This one doesn't look like the ones we have seen before." So we searched. And found out what it was. It's exciting. And it feels like this nature study stuff is really working. :)

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