Follow the Arrows!

While walking the dog in the neighborhood, I suddenly spotted a light blue arrow on the bike trail. As you can see, the arrows continued right down the path. They even went around the bend. What was this?

Was it something from workers who were looking to install cable lines? I kept following it to the main road.

Once I hit the main road and crossed, I was pleasantly surprised to find more arrows.

Then low and behold, I found this written on the sidewalk.

Yes, someone had chalked tadpole pond and drawn one last blue arrow pointing to the water. . This pond is not really a pond, but a spillway for excess water that pours off the streets when it rains. My curiosity piqued, I wandered down to the water. Tadpoles were everywhere! Thousands of them lay on the bottom, floated and darted around in the water.

The grass was already full of tiny frogs that had made the transformation into adulthood, although they were still very tiny.

What a wonderful idea! I am not sure if it was a parent with a child that made the arrows, or some children out on their daily bike rides, but they marked the spot so that everyone could enjoy these wonderful steps of a tadpole becoming a frog!

I have been unable to identify the frog yet, as it is so tiny and is just a gray color right now.

I have added a link to UW Madison's Field Guide to Frogs in Wisconsin. It is a site that is easy to use for children.

http://seagrant.wisc.edu/frogs/field_ids.html

I think we should have more arrow nature hunts in the neighborhood. Maybe I will add one of my own to the trail and mark a plant or tree for the children to find!

Teenage Squirrels

We looked out one afternoon to see a bunch of squirrels around the birdfeeder. After we looked at them for a few minutes we realized that they were young squirrels, teens, if you wish. They were not as big as the other squirrels in the yard. They had a grand time climbing, leaping, chasing and eating what tidbits were around.

Baby Blue

Hearing repeated chirping, I headed under the deck to investigate. There was a nest tucked up under the deck boards. I could just barely see the bird peeking out.

The nest had wires sticking out of it that the mother must have tucked in, maybe so they could hook up their IPods or computers.

After watching the nest, I learned that the baby bird was a Blue Jay. This is what the baby will look like when it is an adult. Credit for the picture is http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/33969  by juditu

I found a great website that has information on the Blue Jay. I like the site because it has pictures, videos, and also sound clips so that you can hear the Blue Jay sing. The site is called All About Birds.

 

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blue_Jay/id.aspx?spp=Blue_Jay&gclid=CJLPjcyL3qkCFUvCKgodPGaUYw

 

Here is a piece of information from this site.

This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds. Their fondness for acorns is credited with helping spread oak trees after the last glacial period.

 

I had no idea they helped move acorns around so that we had more acorn trees in the world.