Sunday, September 13, 2009

Nature encounters







Most of these were seen in Texas. The spider was in Iowa the day before I found out about my cousin's death. It was a fun little encounter we had in our neighborhood while we were looking for monarch butterflies. The cool thing was how huge these spiders (quarter size) were and there were about 4 or five in the same area of tall grass. It had been a rainy day and was drizzling that evening when a friend showed us these cool spiders at a park in our neighborhood.

In Texas we also saw another roadrunner. We see those every time we are at aunt Heidi's.


My favorite thing to do at my sister's house is bird watch and see what nature encounters we can experience. We saw lots of Black Widows, as usual, as we turned over the rain gutter catchers on the ground. My favorite thing for us to do on our last visit was to watch all the humming birds at the back porch feeders. We could see the feeders from inside the house as well. I made this short video of them, while I was sitting on the back porch watching the birds and Camden was in the sprinkler. At the end of the video Camden asked me to scratch his back. He is so adorable! Darn those mosquitoes. It was so relaxing to watch those hummingbirds. They could empty a feeder in about 7 hours or so. My brother in law refilled the feeders several times while we there for two days.

Please tell me about any cool nature encounters you've had lately. I am always trying to think of new adventures here in Iowa to experience, or elsewhere.

Peace to all.

~Heather

P.S. Also, in the photos: Passion Flower with a bumblebee inside, Gulf Fritterly Butterflies mating on a Passion Flower vine, pink hibiscus milkweed flower (Thanks for the correction, Sis). These were all taken in my sister's yard.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! LOVE the video! Very neat and peaceful! Cam makes me laugh ♥ Gotta love him! The mosquitoes are evil bad now! I think we have even more hummingbirds now! Now I am refilling the feeders. I think Brian is tired and doesn't want to help. I don't blame him.. The reward is amazing though, isn't it? I made a huge batch of water just now. Time to go chill it for the morning freaks! ;p I love u! Sis

Holly said...

Ooh, cool nature encounters! If you want to go to a new place, you might try the Dolittle Prairie just south of Story City. It's a little hard to find. I would definitely map it out first. It's one of the last original, untouched prairies in Iowa. If you prowl around in there, you'll find gigantic ant hills, beautiful prairie plants (some rare), butterflies, insects, and if it's damp, the "potholes" turn into mini wetlands.

Also, the Center Grove Apple Orchard is nearby and they have lots of really fun things to do there in addition to picking your own apples. The giant corn pool was the favorite of my kids.

If you've never been to the Neal Smith Prairie, that's a must see. That's all I can think of right now for some fun natury things to do that you might not have been to before.

Thanks for sharing your pictures. That spider is COOL!!

Heather's Moving Castle said...

O.k. how did you make the heart, Sis??? Keep my hummingbirds happy! I showed the video to a neighbor boy and he said he had never seen a hummingbird before. Hard to believe.

Holly, Thanks for the ideas! I'd love to go to those first two places. I have heard about Center Grove Orchard. We haven't been yet. Never heard of Dolittle Prairie. Cool! I am putting those on my list of places to go this year or next.

H

Anonymous said...

The heart is: hold down ALT key and press 3 on right number keypad. (not the top numbers, but the ones to the right) You can make a bunch of fun stuff if you experiment with alt plus any of the numbers of even a combo of the numbers. ☻☺○◘§◘○♥

Heidi Snavley said...

Those are some great pictures!