Thursday, October 3, 2013

September's Nature Notes

A few things we noted in our neck of the woods this month:
 
September 2: There was a little rain yesterday, but today it is sunny.  The C’s antelope is growing bigger.
 
The Croton

 
September 4: James saw another blue bird out on the wire – we need to find out what it is. (ETA: We still haven’t).  Michelle found a pile of beautiful clean rocks yesterday.  They were by the tree with the ‘buttress roots” over by the soccer field.  It was hot enough that we got out the fan!
 
Close-up of the croton's leaves.  Every single one is different.  Aren't they beautiful?

 
September 5: Yesterday, we had a good, hard rain.  First time in a long time.   Ezra saw some brown birds with long tails on the wire.  They had red feet.   We also saw that little blue bird again.
 
The croton's flowers

 
September 9: We have some torch ginger growing in the corner of our yard.  We also saw some orange tube-like flowers growing over the fence by the neighbor’s house.
 
Torch Ginger

 
September 17: Michelle found a rock that was clean all over on the ground.  She thinks someone dropped it there.  Papa noticed a long black wasp (maybe a paper wasp) – they are making a nest at the hangar where he works.
 
New Ferns

 
September 19: There are flowers on the croton in the backyard.  The mangoes on our tree are getting bigger.   We have identified the brown bird with red feet – it is a speckled mousebird.   Also a yellow and black bird which is a yellow-fronted canary.
 
Still curled up tight

 
September 23: Once again, we saw the little blue bird (our next identification project, I guess!).  James saw three speckled mousebirds.
 
We are trying to grow a vine along our fence for a bit more privacy

 
September 26: We saw that there are some new ferns unrolling.  We also observed the spores on the back side of the leaves.   There are some kind of berries on the vine along the fence – or are they flower buds?  We shall see.
 
Berries or Buds?  I'm thinking buds...but they sure don't look like anything I've seen before!

 
What’s blooming in your part of the world?
 

3 comments:

  1. It's so neat to see nature on the other side of the world! Have you tried putting your nature pictures up at Project Noah (online)? I find it quite helpful to identify species I don't know.

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  2. Thanks for the tip - I hadn't heard of Project Noah. We've been slowly collecting field guides applicable to our area - have plants and birds now - but it's taken some searching to find good ones. :)

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  3. very fun. i really like the day by day tracking. excellent!! :)
    thanks for sharing! october's linky is finally up. ;) oh me, oh my.

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