September Nature Study

I finally have my camera back and can post the pictures that I took at our nature study this past week. As I mentioned in this post, the nature study was given by a friend from church at his house located on 200 glorious acres. It was beautiful and I hope we can visit again.

The first thing you notice are all of the butterfly bushes. Monarch butterflies seemed to have all left, yet there were still many other types fluttering about, including Tiger Swallowtails and Great Spangled Fritillaries, like the one above. In the butterfly bushes, we also spotted several hummingbird moths, but they were just too fast and too tiny to get any clear pictures.

He had several Chinese Chestnut Trees planted. Only look and don't touch the hulls because they are spikey like a cactus. **Don't ask me how I know this.**

Some of the moms and littles are looking on as the older kids are trying to get a sample of water from the first pond.

We're all trekking through the tall goldenrod to get to the second pond, affectionately called "Lake George". Mr. George is showing one of the girls how to trap Goldenrod Soldier Beetles.

As you can see, she did a great job. I didn't realize until now that I didn't clearly capture the 100's on the bottom of the net.

At Lake George, they looked at and talked about the duckweed on the pond and talked about the blooming cattails. We also played with some jewel weed buds, but I didn't get a clear picture of them. :(

No nearly autumn nature hike in West Virginia would be complete without looking at Joe-Pye Weed.




When we were done hiking, out came the lemonade, the specimens, the notebooks, and pencils for some nature journaling.

But, the fun continued. This little guy entertained us. It turns out that he is an Orange-humped Mapleworm.

We don't know what he is, but he looked very intimidating for his size.




Here is Ginger's nature journal entry.


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