One Year Pond Study Week 4: A Spring Fauna and Flower Count

Today was freezing. So cold. Too cold for being outside too much!
Today was freezing. So cold. Too cold for being outside too much!

Today, week four of our year-long pond study, we concentrated on the fauna of the area.  Plans for this Monday were as follows:

  • Count the number of Mallards, Moor Hens, Seagulls, Geese and any other birds we happened to see.
  • We intend to do this every season for comparisons

Although this week was probably our least hands on so far, I think when we come back throughout the year, it will be this section which will show the most difference and that excites me.  (Did I actually say that?  Where on earth has the REAL Claire gone?  I can’t believe I’m getting excited about the possibility of more ducks!)

The aforementioned ducks must have felt the love because they were surprisingly friendly.  Either that or simply freezing and starving, hoping we’d brought food.  We hadn’t.

This male Mallard was pecking distance from my feet. Look at those colours. Stunning!
This male Mallard was pecking distance from my feet. Look at those colours. Stunning!
And his mate
And his mate

The girls were in charge of counting the mallards.  There were in all 23, 14 males and 9 females.  A4 counted the Canada Geese of which there were 2:

Our resident pair of geese
Our resident pair of geese

She also counted the Moor hens, just one pair, who were feeling very timid today:

I didn't see the two together which is unusual, and wasn't close enough to get a good photo. This a cropped one from a distance, unusual in that the bird was out of the water.
I didn’t see the two together which is unusual, and wasn’t close enough to get a good photo. This a cropped one from a distance, again unusual in that the bird was out of the water.

T11 counted the gulls, there were many (26):

Lots and lots of gulls
Lots and lots of gulls
Easy to count. Just the one Mandarin duck
Easy to count. Just the one Mandarin duck
And as a surprise this week we saw a raven!
And as a surprise this week we saw a raven!

And we finished our very first nature journal page:

Lots of fun seeing everything we had collected over the month
Lots of fun seeing everything we had collected over the month
We collected up all the bark rubbings we had taken and cut them into the shape of our Ash tree. We had dried and pressed the ivy we had collected from the bark of the actual tree and stuck it so it was climbing up the bark rubbing tree. Clever, no?!
We collected up all the bark rubbings we had taken and cut them into the shape of our Ash tree. We had dried and pressed the ivy we had collected from the bark of the actual tree and stuck it so it was climbing up the bark rubbing tree. Clever, no?!
We made a note book from card and the children chose some thing to jot down during each week. This I want to develop. I cut out cloud shapes and wrote about the weather and focus of week 1 & 2
We made a note-book from card and the children chose some thing to jot down during each week. This I want to develop. I cut out cloud shapes and wrote about the weather and focus of week 1 & 2
We cut out some crocus' and jotted down weather and focus of weeks 3 & 4
We cut out some crocus’ and jotted down weather and focus of weeks 3 & 4.  The children also glued some of the leaves we had collected week 2 and dried and pressed at home.  C10 had drawn some ducks which she stuck onto the pond.
I made a couple of envelopes stuck together to hold all the bits and pieces we had collected
I made a couple of envelopes stuck together to hold all the bits and pieces we had collected

It was so wonderful to create a note page which our whole family contributed to.  I’m sure it will bring back very special memories to look back on over the years.

 Highhill Homeschool

Science Sunday