Charting day length

Today's nature calendar task:

Record the sunrise, sunset and length of day on the following days: March 15th, March 19th, March 22nd, and March 29th.

Sun rises : 7:30

Sun sets : 7:25

Length of day: 11 hours 54 min

Wow! We have gained 1/2 hour of daylight in the last 8 days. We had daylight savings time last weekend, so the results are a little weird compare to our last recording on March 7th.

A flowing stream

Today's nature calendar task:

Observe how the water in a stream wears, carries and deposits soil.

We have a small conservation area nearby that has a stream that winds back and forth nicely. Sometime this week we will go hiking there and take a look. The weather is warming up, it will be interesting to see how much ice is left at the stream. It will also be running at its highest, with the extra water from the snow melting. I'll post photos of our hike.

Updates on past nature tasks:

We went hiking today with some friends of ours.

The ice is starting to clear off the lake, and the Canada geese have returned. The kids saw lots of geese flying overhead, and there were hundreds at the lake. There is a small beach at the lake and it was covered with goose tracks. Watching for the return of the Canada geese was the nature task for March 9th.

I have been looking for tent caterpillar eggs. Today I found a few leftover webs from last year. I looked around on the branches for the eggs but I did not find any. I'll keep looking. Finding tent caterpillar eggs was the nature task for March 11th.

A home for a bluebird

Today's nature calendar task:

Make a home for a bluebird.

My husband is very handy with tools, so this is right up his alley. I found plans for a birdhouse and passed them on to him. The kids are a bit small to help with this sort of project.

There are a few important points to consider for a bluebird house. They require a certain size hole for the opening. Eastern Bluebirds and Western Bluebirds need different hole sizes. Don't use pressure treated wood, the chemicals are toxic to the birds. This article at the North American Bluebird Society has more information.

Some of the nature tasks only take a minute. This one is a bit more involved. I'll post pictures when we're done.

Red-winged blackbird

Today's nature calendar task:

Watch for the red-winged blackbird swaying on cattails.

We haven't seen (or heard) the red-winged blackbirds yet. We just had a cold spell, but next week is warming up. We'll keep our eyes out for him.

We did have an exciting group of bird visitors to our backyard yesterday. There was a flock of common redpolls. I had never seen a redpoll before. Unfortunately I didn't think to get out my camera until they were gone.

We also took a walk in the forest near our house, something we hadn't done for a while. The damage done by the emerald ash borer was disturbing. Many trees had fallen down because the damage the insects did to their trunks was so severe. We heard the Northern Flicker and a Red breasted Nuthatch on our hike. I was looking for moth cocoons and tent caterpillar eggs but did not find any.

Tent caterpillar eggs

Today's nature calendar task:

Place a twig bearing tent caterpillar eggs in water.

I don't know how to do today's task. I only know what the adult, summer tent caterpillar webs look like. I'm not sure that we have tent caterpillars in our area. This is one of those tasks where you return to the tree that had been covered in tent caterpillars last fall, and look for the eggs.

A few minutes of internet research has turned up a few sites. I should be looking for the eastern tent caterpillar. Wikipedia had a good article, and the University of Kentucky entomology department also has a good article. They have pictures of the egg mass.

So, I'm looking for a black, oval mass around a twig on a wild cherry or a crabapple tree. At this point, I don't think I can identify a wild cherry without its leaves, but I do know where there is an abandoned apple orchard. Perhaps we'll look there today. I wonder if I could find the remnants of one of last year's webs, and look in that area.

One of my summer jobs was at a park that had lots of fall webworms. Tons of people would show up at the visitor centre asking about the tent caterpillars and I would have to explain endlessly that they were actually harmless fall webworms. I wish I had learned more.

I love how these nature calendar tasks lead you in all different directions. It is really expanding my nature knowledge, and I consider myself fairly nature savvy. The kids are also following rabbit trails of their own.