Wednesday, September 2, 2009

fish we found today

Today after much effort Hannah was able to capture 4 little pond fish to bring home for observation. Only 3 would show up for this photography session. I guess the other one was camera shy. The pond we took them from had tons of these in all sizes. The babies were easier to get at because they were really close to the shore. This particular pond is teeming with trout, so I am fairly certain they are baby trout. We used an aquarium fish net from Walmart and a 1 gallon tupperware container with a lid from Walmart.

First Nature outing for 2009 school year!

Today we had our first "official" nature study outing. It was fabulous. We went to Bethany Lakes Park in Allen by our the neighborhood we used to live in.

First we spotted many turtles and ducks. They were incessantly begging for food, so we crossed the street to Kroger and bought day old bread. This did the trick to get them close enough for pictures. We were quickly surrounded by about a dozen turtles and a few ducks.

While feeding the eager pond creatures, we spotted a beautiful white Egret that was hunting for food. We also found a marshy area with schools of little fish. They too devoured the bread, but were very hard to catch. We used a small aquarium net and 1 gallon clear plastic container with a lid. We filled our container with the pond water and desperately wanted to catch a few fish to take home for further study. Hannah was the successor in capturing some tiny fish. We now have 4 tiny fish ( minnows?) that we will take home and add to our pond snails. Pictures will post later.