Birds at Our Feeder

 We have been watching birds around our house for the Into the Wild badge for scouts. My dad helped me by taking these pictures. These are the most common birds we see at our bird feeders during December and January. 

Pileated Woodpecker - This bird was very hard to get a picture of. He was very shy. At the slightest sound he would fly away. sometimes two of these bird land in our crab apple tree and eat the berry's.

 

 

White Breasted Nuthatch-  These cute birds like to be upside down

 

Red Belly Woodpecker- Is misnamed because it does not have a red belly.
 

Tufted Titmouse- these are probably the most common birds around December and January.

Downy woodpecker (females)- small relative to other woodpeckers
 

Carolina chickadee- These are also a common sight during winter.

 

Tree frogs, salamanders, and toads

In the past few days I have been looking for amphibians in my back yard and at the end of my road. Some nights I have lots of luck and others i don't find any thing. Some good times to find salamanders is on foggy moist mornings under rocks and leaves. Good times to find toads are on dark summer nights in large marshy spots and puddles, or maybe in your garden. Please note do Not throw toads out of your lawn or garden they help keep away bad insects. Good times to find frogs and tree frogs are at about 9:00 or 8:30 about the same time toads are out.

Here are some pictures of the things I found these last nights.

Supprise in the creek

I couldn't wait till Saturday, so we went back to the creek. Today, we found some really awesome things.

These two pictures are the same female crayfish. She was a different crayfish than last time. If you look closely you can see that she is slightly blue and has some scrapes that she probably got from a fight.

 This crayfish may be the same one I saw last time but I don't think so. You can write down in the comments if you think it was the same crayfish.

 As you can see here we have a fuzzy and frendly companion named  Sitka.

After a while we decide to head back then I asked my parents if I could lift up a few more rocks and I found a newt!!!!! I have been trying to catch these sense last hike. While my parents are ooo and awwing I lift up another rock and guess what I find. Another Newt, Also before I caught the newts I found a stone fly which you can see in the picture of the two newts. We think the newt type is the eastern red spotted newt. But if you think its something else, please write it in the comments section.

Thank you for reading and remember the next post is this Saturday.

Back Yard Adventures

To start a backyard adventure you can look for wildlife in your backyard. Your backyard can be big or small. Some things you can find in your back yard are plants, insects, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, fish or crustaceans [if you have a creek].

Here are some examples of animals that you may find if you have a creek in your backyard.

Pools of water with lots of rocks are perfect places to find things.

 

You can find salamanders under rocks and logs.

But this little guy is a baby.

This is a baby crayfish. I found a bunch of them in a large pool........

                                   .... along with big guy. You can find crayfish under rocks in pools and creeks This is a good sized crayfish.

And there were a bunch of medium sized crayfish, too. And here are some more baby's .  Fun  facts about crayfish, 1.Cray fish are not lobsters. 2.crayfish are called crayfish,crawfish, and mudbugs 

 

Thank you for reading we will be making a post every Saturday