Explore Outdoors ~ Old Friends

 

 

 

Flower-watching is sort of like bird watching. Except that flowers don't have feathers, and they don't fly. They don't move very much at all ... but they do change over the season. I enjoy looking at flowers at all stages, from buds to "old friends" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not the only one who has flower friends - Last  Friday I shared a book about a kid who befriends flowers.

 

 

This week visit the flowers in your neighborhood. 

Are there any that are growing old and fuzzy?

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Funky Fungi!

 

 

 We had a lot of rain in June and early July, and the pile of wood chips hosted quite the convention of mushrooms. But one day when I walked over to check them out, I noticed that many of them seemed to be wearing "hats" atop their caps.
 
iNaturalist came to the rescue and identified the brain-like growth as another fungus, a parasite called Collybia Clouds (Syzygospora mycetophila).

 

 

I wondered: did it grow beneath the mushroom cap as well?

So I looked.

Yep!  

 

And then I found one of the collybia clouds all by itself... I guess it had finished off its host mushroom. A week later I checked the chip pile and all was gone!

 

With mushrooms, you've got to be looking when they fruit! 

 

What cool fungi will you find this week?

Explore Outdoors ~ bugs on blooms

 I spent a lot of time last month taking photos of bugs - a great many of them on flowers. Here are three that I particularly enjoyed.

 

Now it's your turn -

look for bugs on flowers

where you live 

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ WELCOME BACK!

 Welcome back from summer vacay! Just in time to meet a teensy flower that I look for outside my kitchen door every summer. It's so tiny it often goes unnoticed - but not this year.

 

Meet the Blue-eyed Grass! 

 

 

I've got a few of these tiny (less than 1" across) flowers that pop up near my house when there's enough rain. They don't always look like flowers - in fact, their flat stems and blade-like leaves give them a bunchy "grass-like" appearance. Which is probably how they got their name, "blue-eyed grass" - though to tell the truth, I think they have more of a yellow eye.

 

These flowers aren't grass at all, but are related to irises. And when you see the seed pod it makes sense, as they look a bit like rounded iris pods. Blue-eyed grass is a native plant, and can grow as tall as 18 inches - though mine rarely grow taller than half-a-foot.

 

This week, keep your eyes peeled for tiny blue flowers and tiny seed pods. If you can, collect some seeds and try to grow them to plant at the edge of your yard or garden.

 

What color of eyes does the grass in your yard have? 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Sneaky Spiders

 I've got some Very Sneaky Spiders hanging out in my garden and surrounding area! They don't advertise their presence by spinning sticky webs that net unsuspecting fliers. Instead, they hide in and under flowers, waiting for dinner to come to them - to settle on the flower for a sip of sweet nectar - and then they POUNCE! 

 

Do you have sneaky spiders in your flowers? 

  

Explore Outdoors ~ local pollinators

 This is Pollinator Week!  Pollinators, like people, come in all shapes and sizes. Those visiting my garden include bumblebees, carpenter bees, sweat bees and tons of other bees I don't have names for (yet), syrphid flies and other flies, wasps - from bald-faced hornets to paper wasps to tiny wasps, butterflies, skippers, hummingbird moths, beetles, and hummingbirds. I'm sure I've left some out. 

 

Here are a few  of the pollinators visiting my garden and the "weeds" along the road.

Who do you see pollinating your flowers?

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Poppies!

 

 

 

 

 

The poppies were blooming with wild abandon last week! I love their brightness.

 

 

 

 

I wanted to get a closer look, so I snapped the macro lens onto my (smartphone) camera and got up-close and personal with the poppies...

 

 

 

What do you notice when you look inside a flower? 

 

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ dandelion seeds

 Dandelion seed heads look so fluffy and soft! 

 But over time the wind blows those seed-parachutes away and you can see where the seeds were attached. They look sort of like golf balls to me - and when you look more closely at the seeds, you begin to notice the different textures. I used a clip-on macro lens for my smartphone, but you can see a great amount of detail with a hand lens.

 

 

This week get up-close and personal with dandelions.

What do you discover?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Ants on Plants!

 

 I headed out for a walk the other day, thinking I might find bees on some of the wildflowers. I stopped and looked, closer and closer....

 

 

 

... and found an ant meandering up the raceme of almost-open blossoms. Looks like it barely escaped the fangs of a camouflaged flower spider! In all honesty, I didn't even see the spider until I looked at the photo later, on my computer.

 

So why did the ant climb up the cherry tree? Maybe it has a sweet tooth - er, mandible. Leaves of some species of wild cherry have extrafloral nectaries. Perhaps this ant is part of a pest-patrol? 

 

Peonies provide nectar for ants that keep pesky plant-chewing bugs off their flowers and stems - you can find out more here.

 

Look closely this week. 

Do you have ants on your plants? 

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Who's hanging out on the dandelions?

 Last week my garden was filled with bright yellow dandelions. My first thought was ... hey! I wonder if any pollinators are visiting them?

 

There were! I spent a bit more than 10 minutes walking around the garden counting the bees, wasps, and flies visiting dandelions.

 

Three tiny coppery bees, two flies, one bumblebee, and 45 wasps. Of those wasps, most (41) were small, not even a centimeter long, and four were paper wasps, like this one from nearly a dozen years ago. Check out that pollen smeared all over her face and thorax!

 

 

This week look for pollinators on the dandelions in your neighborhood.

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Violets and their Kin

 What do you notice about the flowers below? 

  

They look like they might be related, right? And they are! The first one is a violet growing in my yard, and the others are pansies, growing in pots at a nursery. 

Sometimes I think pansies look like giant violets - and they do share the same genus: Viola. They also have five petals, just like violets. But look at the violet petals: it looks like three go in one direction and two in the other. The pansies have four petals going up, and one going down (like the smile on a face). 

I've seen violets in my yard ranging in color from nearly white to pink, magenta, and deep purple. And some of the violets even have little faces, like these pansies do.

Look for violets and pansies growing near you. 

What things do you notice about them?

 

Explore outdoors ~ No Mowing Yet

 We have not mowed yet ... because the lawn is filled with flowers. And some of those flowers provide pollen for the bees. And because, frankly, we just haven't gotten around to it. Here are a couple shots from my lawn last week. What do you notice?

 Do you have flowers growing in your yard? 

Take a close look - sometimes the flowers are hidden.

• What color are the flowers growing amongst your grass?
• How many petals do they have?
• Are there any bumble bees or other insects visiting them? 
  

Explore Outdoors ~ watching flowers bloom

 

A couple weeks ago I was in Boston, watching magnolias bloom. One day they'd be a bud, the next they'd begin to burst open, and when I walked by a couple hours later, they were in full bloom! It's amazing what a couple warm spring days will do...

 

 Sometimes I refer to these Wednesday posts as "nature breaks" - and there's a reason. Getting out in nature, even for just 10 minutes a day, does wonders for your health - at least according to a study out of UMD and Cornell University.

What flowers are you noticing this week?

Explore Outdoors ~ Treetop Fungi

 During an early spring storm, a couple of small branches blew down from the oaks lining the driveway. I always enjoy looking at what's growing on them - usually a fun selection of lichens and other fungi that are too high to see. They resemble the sorts of things one might find clinging to driftwood at the ocean's edge. Sometimes the treetop fungi look just as surprised to see me as I am to see them.

Next time the wind blows down branches from a tree, check out what's growing on them!

Explore Outdoors ~ a point of view

 

 What do you notice

when you get eye-to-leaf

with a plant growing 

from the ground 

up?

 

 

Explore Outdoors ~ look up!

 

 

 

What do you see 

when you look up into the trees?

What trees and shrubs

are breaking into bloom?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Spring Comes In

 Spring officially started last week, but depending on where you live, signs of spring may have been sprouting up since February. Maybe it's the sound of running water (the creek at the bottom of the road is burbling along - noisy compared to a couple weeks ago!) or the abundance of bird calls. Maybe bits of green are poking up through the snow...

This week look for signs of spring!

Explore Outdoors ~ End of Winter

 Spring officially begins tomorrow!  So this is a great time to walk around and see what the dregs of winter look like, and what the beginning of spring brings. Down at a neighbor's yard I found some mummied cherries and a catkin just waking up from a long winter's nap.

 

 

 What end-of-winter changes do you see around your neighborhood?

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Bird Tracks on my Porch

 The birds know, without a doubt where the source of the suet and seed is. And, after a dusting of snow, the chickadees have no qualms letting us know that they are waiting for a refill! The woodpeckers have another way of communicating - they're drumming on dead trees and at daybreak it's enough to get one up and moving!

What are the birds telling you where you live?

Explore Outdoors~ Frozen

 In 15 days, spring will be here! I can't wait. It's been a cold winter, which makes it feel longer than normal. Even when the sun shines and melts snow off the roof, it freezes overnight! 

What does the world look like outside your door this week?