Portrait Of A Bat

Recently, one of our attic guests posed for this picture. This Connecticut big brown bat and his relatives don't deserve their bad reputation. But would you want him in your attic?

Animals At Play

Animals At Play: Rules of the Game by Marc Bekoff teaches, informs, and entertains. It looks like a picture book; but like other well-written non-fiction for children, all ages will enjoy and learn from this story. After all, Dr. Marc Bekoff is an ethologist who co-founded the Ethical Treatment of Animals with Jane Goodall. Bekoff taught biology at the University of Colorado for 34 years. Now he travels the world to teach others including prisoners, children and senior citizens. Articles in Ranger Rick, appearances on Animal Planet and National Geographic Television are also part of his resume. He also works closely with the children in Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Institute.

What is an ethologist? This scientist is a zoologist who studies animal behavior. As Marc shows in Animals At Play, animals have rules too. One thing every animal does before chasing or tumbling with his friend is to ask if the friend wants to play. Sometimes playmates will be too rough. Bekoff asks, “What do they do?” and he answers, they apologize, of course, just like you.” Part of the attraction, however, of Animals At Play is Bekoff’s effortless connection between human and animal behavior without giving the animals anthropomorphic, or human, qualities.

Looking at the paragraph length on each page, the adult reader might mistake this book for older children. However, it makes a great read-aloud book for the four-year-old crowd. The pictures by Michael J. DiMotta are filled with the action that Bekoff describes.

Curious About Human Nature

This blog entry deviates from the Nature I like to talk about. It focuses today on Human Nature. But there comes a time when even a non-political person like myself must speak out. Having taught reading and English to high school students in a racially mixed suburban/urban setting, I find the opposition to President Obama's desire to speak to America's children and to encourage them to write letters suggesting ways to improve our country an abominable condemnation on our society. I am not sure these words fully convey my utter amazement that the media portrays these naysayers as rational objectors. If not, let me reiterate my disgust. I spent 36 years teaching these young adults who found coping with their lives (and I am referring to poverty and all its pitfalls) not only difficult but intolerable, who did not understand that education (besides a sports scholarship) was the way out and up. I know reaching these children by any means is the most important goal. Having said that, I find it deplorable that any teacher, any parent, and caring adult could find fault with the President's plan.

Where are all the other voices who value the President's no-nonsense approach to getting the job done, whether it be education or health care?

Sneezeweed

Sneezeweed, or Heliums, is also called swamp sunflowers. Even though it is the green leaves that were often used to make snuff, sneezeweed certainly makes you think it is a plant any mischief-maker, young or old, would like to find. Does it really make you sneeze? One sniff and you will know.

I do not know if sneezeweed makes a cow sneeze. But if she eats it, her milk will sour. Horses and sheep can also eat too many of the poisonous powder heads with a fatal outcome.

The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin applied a compound of dried flowers to cuts on the temple to relieve a headache or sniff the snuff to cause sneezing to clear a stuffy head or to relieve a headache.

The Meswaki Indians of Iowa used an infusion made from the florets to help a gastrointestinal problem and the snuff for colds.

The Comanche used an infusion of the florets as a wash for a fever.

The poisonous sneezeweed is nothing to sneeze at! The plant’s poison that comes from a chemical compound called sesquiterpene is more potent when is flowering. It is this chemical that gives the plant its bitter taste. Ingesting it can cause some nasty results such as weakness, bloating, staggering, salivation and irregular pulse, spasms convulsions and death to name a few. Some people have been poisoned simple because some sneezeweed mixed with the harvested wheat.

Other well-known plants that also contain sesquiterpene are chrysanthemums, ragweed, sagebrush, and the sunflower.

Polar Bear! Polar Bear!

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

Your ice is melting all around you.

What will you do?

Polar Bear, Polar Bear,

Can you find a strong ice patch

To sit upon while you eat your catch?

Polar Bear, Polar Bear,

Without that tasty seal for dinner

You will get thinner and thinner.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

You are the biggest bear of all

We must listen to your call.

Sassafras Travels From The New World To The Old World

The role of sassafras for Americans, and subsequently, Europeans is a story worth telling. The Spanish discovered the tree in the 1500’s and began shipping it to Europe. Some believe they also named the tree. However, sassafras is the Indian word for tree so there is some doubt. Moreover, sassafras, one of the top 100 common trees in American, was important to many tribes. The Choctaw Indians along the Gulf Coast taught the French how to make “file.” These ground sassafras leaves will thicken soup. Many other native Americans used the sassafras tree, including the Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Delaware, Oklahoma, Houma, Iroquois, Kosati, Mohegan, Nanticoke, Rappahannock, Seminole.

There is no question that when the Spanish exported this strong citrus root and leaves to Europe they started a health craze equal to any we see today. The Europeans considered it an elixir for rheumatism, wounds and even, old age. If you were to dig up the root and peel back the bark, the spicy smell will immediately remind you of root beer because the root of this tree is used to make this soda. Some tea drinkers enjoy the root's taste regardless of its medicinal benefit. Others use the root to make brown dye.

By the way, I would like identify the other 99 most common trees in America? Any ideas?

Sassafras Tea, Anyone?

The best thing about nature reading is making the discovery in real life. This happened to me today. Lately I have been learning more about the sassafras tree. Now I know there are those of you who think my discovery is akin to a toddler picking up a stick. When I spotted the very identifiable three-lobed leaf, I picked and crushed it ,enjoying its lemony scent... nature’s magic. I cannot wait to share this moment with my granddaughter. Still excited about my discovery, I set out on a more thorough internet search. One of first bits of information I learned, as I usually do on these journeys, is that I am not the first to investigate the sassafras story. And, in this case, our country’s early history is very closely connected to the sassafras tree. Another blogger explained what I thought I saw today-very different leaf shapes on the same tree- but dismissed as impossible.

Another interesting fact is that Amazon lists over 100 books with "sassafras" in the title. Of course, there is Sassafras the elephant, caterpillar, poodle, or skunk. I guess the repeating s's attract attention. But the tree received a lot more attention as a medicinal cure. More on the sassafras story tomorrow.

Where Have All The Codfish Gone?

Where have all the codfish gone,

Asked the hungry seal to the polar bear?

Where have the codfish gone,

Asked the salmon to the narwhal?

Where have all the codfish gone,

Asked the ivory gull to all his Arctic friends?

The codfish asked

Where have all my plants and plankton gone?

Melted away. Melted away, sighed the little boy

Sitting in the sun.

Let us work towards keeping this environmental nursery rhyme a tale, not a truth.

What Is In A Name?

The etymology of Yellow toadflax begins with it older and more useful cousin. Although Yellow Toadflax has been in North America for the last 300 years old, compared to its namesake, flax, it is still a youngster. Flax was one of the first crops cultivated by civilized man. Therefore some suggest it was native to the Orient and then traveled south to India and north to Europe. The Swiss Stone Age People of the Mediterranean used the fiber and the seed. The Egyptians wrapped their mummies in linen woven from flax fibers.  

Now no one denies the connection between the true flax and its weedy cousin. Many of these weedy species of Linaria look very much like flax. However, this link makes tracing the “toad” in toadflax somewhat unclear.  Some say that toadflax got its name because the word “toad” was a spurious, or counterfeit, of the origin plant. Considering the plethora of common names gives to yellow toadflax, this seems plausible. Common names often take on the observer sees. Some see a cow’s nose, or Calves Snout, in the orange lobes. Others suggest that the plants structure (the two orange lobes) resemble a toad’s mouth.   A third theory is that toads were often found hiding among the leaves.  The butter & egg, or wild snapdragon, is one of 130 species of Linnaria, native to Eurasia.

 

Yellow Toadflax: Beauty or the Beast?

Yellow Toadflax, or butter and eggs, part of the figwort or snapdragon family, is a plant with delicate orange lobes similar to a pair of lips, sitting on top of a yellow spur. It is not surprising that this profile earned it a generic name that means dragon mouth because like other flowers that are squeezed open their "mouth." Children also enjoy playing with these lips. Squeezing the side of the flower makes the mouth open and then snap shut. When the bumblebees pollinates the snapdragon, its ungratefully close over the pollinator who is dispositing his pollen

Because of this resemblance to the showy snapdragon, in the mid 1800's a Welsh Quaker, traveling with William Penn to Delaware started cultivating it in his garden. Ranstead, an upholster by trade, who probably had an appreciation for design, brought this Ranstead Weed, or yellow toadflax, to America, was unconcerned about it escaping the garden.

Some may recognize it by one of its many alias; wild snapdragon, Ramstead Weed, Flaxweed, Jacob’s Ladder, Brideweed, , Buttered Hayhocks, Calves' Snout, Churnstaff, Devil's Head, Devil's Ribbon, Doggies, Dragon-Bushes, Eggs and Bacon, Eggs and Collops, Flaxweed, Fluelli, Gallwort, Larkspur Lion's Mouth, Linaria vulgaris, Monkey Flower, Pattens and Clogs, Pedlar's Basket, Pennywort, Rabbits, Toadpipe, Yellow Rod.

The yellow toadflax with round shaped leaves grows in sandy soil: Whereas the spiked leaf yellow toadflax likes to creep extensively and spread its roots in a gravelly base. It is this ability to root so easily that has allowed it to spread to every state. It was introduced in California in the 1800’s. North Dakota has an all-out bulletin on a website that personifies this gorgeous weed. “If you find this weed, report it to your local weed officer. 
HELP STOP THE SPREAD” Along with its decorative yellow cornucopia, or “butter”, holding the orange, “egg” which first attracts the gardener to its beauty. Colorado and Idaho are among the many states listing it as a noxious weed. “The weeds contain a poisonous glucoside that may be harmful to livestock.” British Columbia uses biological agents to control it.

Flower By Flower

Flower By Flower

Think about the names of wildflowers (even those we consider weeds) you have learned over the years.  How many would you guess you know? 10? 20?  Why are some so familiar, and others, visually recognizable, but name unknown.  The buttercup, for instance, has been put under millions of tiny chins to check for the victim’s love of butter. The daisy has had its petals pulled one by one only to break the heart of the person holding the lone petal that “loves me not.” For each of us, there is that memory that forever holds the name of the flower in our hearts. One puff on the dandelion –endears the child to its magic explosion.

But there are so many more that go nameless. One look at a botanical website listing the wildflowers for each state will make it painfully clear how many we are missing.

The best way to approach this for child or adult is to focus on one flower and learn all there is to know about it. Looking around, yellow dots the Connecticut roadsides this month. I plan on learning about each yellow wildflower, flower by flower. Won’t you join me?

Read More About It:

A Little Guide to Wild Flowers, by Charlotte Voake, April, 2007; Transworld Publishers.

 

Mabel Osgood Wright

The journey back to the joys of the natural world-whether its an garden on an urban rooftop, a footpath into a lush  forest, or a backyard vegetable patch-will define the beginning of this 21^st century. Much of the credit for this rebirth goes to Robert Louv’s Last Child In the Woods and the “Nature Deficit Disorder”  generation  growing up today.  Along with all the empirical and anecdotal evidence Louv cites, many studies underscore -on several levels- the need to balance our technological living with the natural world. The health of every person and the health of our world depend on it.  Our mental health-our well-being-our intellectual health-as well as our physical health demand activities that take us away from the screen or the text. Moreover,  placing importance on this life will ensure that those who value our environment will preserve it.

Interestingly, before the computer, the cell phone, and I Pod, earlier naturalists were defending the natural world.  Mabel Osgood Wright who founded the Connecticut Audubon Society is one of those naturalists. She grew up in New York City but  lived her married life in Fairfield, Connecticut. Her children books such as Four Footed Americans And Their Kin  written in 1899  shows how the “House Family” interacts with the animals. Critics praise Wright's attention to portraying the animals in their natural habitat.

 

 

Beach Day & Book

When the day is done, a visit to the beach can lead to some fun reading. The key to motivating children to read is to "strike when the iron is hot." Probably whatever caught your child's eye during the day can be found in a book. Making this connection with children shows them books are not something in addition to what goes on throughout the day. The books are PART of a day.

Read More About It
Miranda's Beach Day by Holly Keller is a 2009 picture book that shares the day of crabs and sandcastles along with a powerful, yet subtle, message about Nature.

Flowers, Children & Nature: A Natural Fit

Recently we took our 4-year-old granddaughter to your typical slide and swing park in New Jersey. It is always a delight to be with her. But her real joy (and, of course, ours) took place across the street at a garden displaying its June flowers. My granddaughter had visited before and proudly showed off the purples, pinks and blues. Gardening with one pot or a small garden connects children to nature. The plethora of books for children and gardening is also a bonus. From the 'how to' of planting seeds, caring for them, and enjoying the fruit or flower. Also, some garden books connect gardening to art and poetry.

Read More About It
In The Garden With VanGogh Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober ( 2002 Reed Businesses) will engage babies and pre-schoolers with vivid sunflowers and irises accompanied by short rhymes.

Walkingstick

What is more fun then a lively song to enjoy the best of nature.
If you have not seen a Walkingstick (a Northern Walkingstick in New England) you must read about them and hope you spot one while hiding on a branch. This website is a good place to start.

Do You Know?
A Walkingstick can regrow a leg but it will be shorter then his other ones. Look at the picture. Do you think this Walkingstick has a new leg?

If a Walkingstick loses an antennae, it grows a leg in its place.


Read More About it
Hidden Walkingsticks by Meish Goldish (2008 Bearport Publishing)
Ages 4-10

A Robin's First Spring Nest

"Cheer up! Cheer up!" Finding a nest with baby robins is a great way to listen to the robin's call and 'cheer up.' These three robins are eagerly awaiting a tasty worm.


Do You Know? Robins build several nests throughout the season. For their first home they usually choose a securely nestled place in an evergreen tree.
Can you guess why they move to deciduous trees later in the summer?

Read More About It!

My Spring Robin
By Anne Rockwell, Harlow Rockwell, & Lizzy Rockwell. Age: preschool-K

Listen and Look for A Vernal Pool Near You

Looking for nature close to home any time of year is restful, not to time-consuming, and a great way to spend time with a friend, your child, or alone. Mid-march is a perfect time to look for a vernal pool. The Connecticut Audubon Society tells us, "You may have a vernal pool in your backyard! In early March, listen for the quacking call of wood frogs arriving at the vernal pool. On the first warm, rainy nights you might find a parade of spotted salamanders risking exposure to predators and traffic as they make their way to their breeding pools. Vernal pools are small, temporary bodies of water that are critical breeding habitat for many amphibian neighbors that need our protection."

Why Save the Caddisfly?

Maybe it is the ephemeral nature of a vernal pool that makes it seem less important than a permanent habitat. However, without these small bodies of water that appear in mid-March to late April and disappear in the warmer months maintaining over 100 species including the more well-known tree frog, spotted salamander, caddisfly, fairy shrimp, and bog turtle who need an aquatic environment to spawn would disappear permanently and as quickly as these ponds dry up. This list of inhabitants who use the pool is a long one; some use it for every portion of their life cycle; others depend on it for specific times.
Some of these species are cute and attractive such as the tree frog and salamander. Others, like the caddisfly, "the underwater architects", according to Glenn Wiggins; are intimating, night flying nuisances- unless you are a fly fisherman, that is. For this sportsman knows caddisflies are a trout's favorite and essential meal. There is a plethora of information explaining how caddisflies catch trout. However, finding juvenile literature for children about the caddisfly is difficult, if not impossible. Unlike its cousin, the beautiful butterfly, who also spins a silk cocoon, this simple moth which carries his wings over his back like a tent, has a hardiness instead of beauty. It is this endurance that explains why ecologists often study this aquatic invertebrate? It's absence is a harbinger of a deteriorating environment, particularly the vernal pool which supports so much biological diversity. Unlike the mayfly which cannot eat or drink, the hardy caddisfly tolerates more pollution. Therefore, if this insect disappears, there is good reason to suspect toxins in the water.

Do You Know?

Caddisflies are called architects because, ..."some species of caddisflies are even known to incorporate tiny pieces of translucent quartz, believed to serve as a window allowing the resident
larvae to monitor daylight."
Mary Garvin and J.P. Lieser Life In the Water: Aquatic Vertabrates (online)

Vernal Pool

It seems that not too long ago, we referred to a wet, sloppy area surrounded by forest, as wetlands. In our ever growing environmentally conscious society hard fast laws started to protect this valuable habitat. Recently, new, more precise language describes these temporary breeding grounds. The vernal pool is not only important to our ecosystem but a great place to explore with children. We will be following a vernal pool in Connecticut that is just about to wake up. To see a time lapse of a vernal pool waking up in Massachusetts visit You Tube.Today, it is still covered with a thin layer of ice, but there is much going on below the surface. Watching this awakening with a child can be exciting and meaningful. Teaching respect for the fragility of the pool and its residents and watching new life emerge will be priceless moments for you and the young mind nature is nurturing.
How do you observe without disturbing this cycle is the first lesson. Gathering some facts before visiting is a good way to start.
Playing detective to learn who lives here brings mystery into this expedition.


Read More About It:
Frog Heaven: Ecology of a Vernal Pool
by Doug Wechsler; ages 9-12.

The Night of the Spadefoot Toad
by Bill Harley; fiction for young adult

There will be much more on vernal pools in the coming blogs. After all, vernalis is the Latin for spring. From mid-March to late April the vernal pool becomes the home of many animals that need its water to keep its species alive.

A Black Deer In Connecticut?

Do you think he is black? Unlike the very rare albino deer which is white or not white, the black deer's dark coloration can range from gray to very black. Some say it is more rare than an albino. It is the melanism, unusual darkening of body tissues caused by excessive production of melanin; especially, a form of color variation in animals.
Some more video of black deer.
Read More About It!
White-Tailed Deer (Early Bird Nature Books)
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, William Munoz

The Stick

One great thing about enjoying the outdoors is its simplicity. Last year the stick took its place in the toy hall of fame museum in Rodchester, New York, as part of the Strong National Museum of Play.

Read More About It
Not A Stick by Antoinette Portis is a picture book that gives young children a chance to think about the many ways a stick can transform itself.

A White Squirrel?

My son spotted a white squirrel in our yard today. We live in Durham: it is in the southern, central part of Connecticut. Like most of us, his first thought was albino. But this white squirrel is not an albino; according to biologists, it is a genetic mutation of the eastern gray squirrel. Its dark, not red, eyes reveals its true identity. They are, however, fairly rare. One observer in Ridgefield, Connecticut suggested that the other squirrels did not like him. How did he know this? Well, it seems that another gray was always chasing him.
Other interesting animal coloration included the piebald dear which brown and white patches making it look, more like a cow than a deer.
Share you other interesting sitings with my readers.

Read More About It
A new picture book, A Little White Squirrel's Secret: A Special Place To Practice, by Penny Hunt and others, captures the white squirrel's beauty and his triumph over being different.

Is It Spring Yet?

No. But I can dream, can't I?

Dancing With The Stars

Is she ready?

Green Sea Turtle At Baltimore Aquarium

A visit to an aquarium or even a nature center can begin a wonderful immersion in the world of nature.
This Green Sea Turtle rescued off the Long Island swims easily in the protected water at the Baltimore Aquarium; even without its flipper, amputated due to the infection it sustained after it was cold-stunned. Here is a science activity for 6th to 12th graders to teach about this phenomena that is not unlike hypothermia in humans.
Even though, the sea turtle is threatened, there is some hope, according to the Nature Conservancy.

Read More About It

Sea Turtles (Undersea Encounters) by Mary Jo Rodes and David Hall;March, 2006; ages 9-12

One Tiny Turtle: Read and Wonder by Nicola Davies (author) and Jane Chapman (illustrator); June 2005; K-Gr2

Diego and the Baby Sea Turtles by Lisa Rao; May, 2008; ages 3-7

Do You Know?
May 23, 2000 was designated the first National Turtle Day by American Tortoise Rescue.

Whose Tracks Are They?

Before you hurry to the car, take a moment to check out the tracks crossing the fresh snow next to your doorstep. One glance will intrigue even the busiest among us to stop and wonder who or what made them. Some of us will use it as a brisk reason to spend time outdoors following the mysterious steps. Even the least adventuresome might find it exciting to imagine who passed by your window when you were not looking.

What better way to tweak a child's imagination on a snowy winter day?

What is the biggest, scariest, smallest track you have seen?


Read More About It
Tracks In The Snow by Herbert Wong is a 2007 children's book about an Asian girl who follows her tracks through her neighborhood discovering they are her own from yesterday's walk.
This soft 32 page picture book is a great beginning preschoolers to second graders to connect with the wildlife walking and running on the same paths they use every day.

In Big Tracks, Little Tracks Millicent Selsam tells her 7 to 9 year old readers why a cat looks like an animal with two feet.

Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods

When I started this blog, I knew I wanted to show and share my respect, my amazement and awe about the natural world with my readers. I always felt those scarlet poppies growing around my sandbox, those hydrangeas forming a natural gate between my house and my grandmother's and her cherished apple, pear, and nut trees hold a special place in my childhood memories.
I also remember the move when I was ten to a track house with two by four boards bridging the driveway to the doorway to avoid the mud; and not a tree on the property. The change was devastating.
Oddly, reading Richard Louv's book, Last Child In The Woods, all these years later, explains the loss I felt, but never identified. That loss is nature-deficit-disorder.
Today, as the grandmother who has the glorious opportunity to share my wooded forest with my granddaughter, I understand and value this gift.
The strength of Richard Louv's book is the overflowing, readable research which, at first thought, is profoundly self-evident, but overlooked or ignored for generations. These obvious facts startle the reader; first, because we know allowing the natural world to decay with such a blatent neglect is simply wrong; second, acting on his information, recognized by the 2008 Audubon Award, will connect future generations to nature. It truly is a very simple cause/effect relationship that no one can reject and everyone should embrace.
Just as important as the references, statistics and philosophy are Louv's personal anedotes and those he offers from others. One friend told him that if you cannot name a tree, plant, or animal you will not appreciate its value. I found the same analogy true after many years of teaching. Learning a child's name was the first, sometimes only, step needed to improve his behavior.
Taking the person out of personal is similar to taking the nature out of natural. We must strive to move our technology forward without losing sight of the individuality of nature.

A New Year?

Did you ever wonder what life would be like without milestones like birthdays or holidays? Somehow the natural world celebrates each day with none of our candles or bows. Its greeting is the sunrise. It's party goers are the squirrels swinging from a branch to reach the bird feeder. It is the chickadee and titmouse vying with the blue jay for a morning snack. It is the deer cautiously grazing on what green is showing; or the red headed woodpecker knocking out his welcome call.