Snail Watching

Kate spent quite a while out in the rain, watching all the snails in the yard. It's like Snail City out there when it's wet.



They really like the Red Hot Poker plant!



Kate wants a pet snail. I guess it's no weirder than pet pillbugs (and possibly less likely to get eaten by the cat).

Hitchhiker

This happened today. I'm glad I noticed this little guy before biting down. That would have been unpleasant for both of us, I'm sure! The snail went back outside and the lettuce got a better washing.

Robin's Nest

Breakfast for hungry babies, June 19th.

We've had a special treat watching this family of robins right outside our apartment building.  The nest is just above my eye level, which means I can lift Kate up so she can have a good view.  Kate had been pretty sick and we missed the day the eggs hatched, but when I noticed the babies I gave her a piggy-back ride outside to see them.  We waited very quietly and after a while Mama Robin came to feed them (after chirping at us angrily from the sidelines for a few minutes).  Kate was entranced. She said, "That's a miracle!"



June 23rd.  The babies are getting bigger!



Mama is still suspicious.  I had to wait her out for about twenty minutes.





June 25th.  I never did get any more feeding pictures.  I hung out for an entire hour, but Mama just wasn't going for it. 



June 26th.  Something must have happened to one of the babies--there are only three now. 



Watchful parent.




The babies fledged on June 27th (the kids' half birthday!)  I was heading out to run some errands and stopped to check the nest first, and just happened to catch the last baby standing on the edge of the nest, looking uncertain.  I grabbed the camera and got a few shots before he fluttered out. 





We didn't really see the babies after this. Their parents continue to feed them on the ground for a couple of days, but apparently they decided that right outside an apartment building was not the best place to do it. Kate asked me what will happen to the nest now. I told her they might use it again, or they might decide there are too many people around. Enough with the paparazzi!

gastropodus visitorius

Behold the lowly slug, who spreads a shiny trail of happiness behind him wherever he goes!



We like to poke slugs (gently) in the eye stalk, and then yell, "AAAAGH!  MY EYE!"  as they retract.  I promise it's hilarious. 





Kate was quite thrilled when this little slug crawled onto her hand, but discovered an inconvenient fact--that slime is hard to wash off!

Jessica Beecher said that her ducks would like to eat Kate's slug.  I told her Kate would certainly disapprove.  Sluggy stayed with us overnight in a jar, and then returned to the great outdoors.

Bye-bye pillbugs!

We have released the pillbugs back into the wild, so they can get ready to do whatever it is that pillbugs do in the wintertime. When I say "back" this is not precisely accurate for many of them, since we had several litters (clutches?) of babies born in captivity. Hopefully they will know what to do outside!




Kate found a worm, too, and wanted to keep that for a while.

We enjoyed having the pillbugs with us for a few months--spraying them with water a few times a day to keep them from drying out, and feeding them things like lettuce, carrot peelings, and melon rinds. It was impressive how quickly they could devour a leaf of lettuce.

We had a few pieces of rotting wood that the pillbugs tunneled into. We thought it was cool the way they would pack into the grooves, so I got some pictures before we let them go. Don't click if you are disturbed by creepy-crawly things up close!

An Influx of Isopods (or, Kate and her 37 little friends)

(Warning: this post contains creepy-crawlies. If you do not like creepy-crawlies, feel free to not read this post.)

Roly-polies. Pillbugs. Sowbugs. Woodlice. Small terrestrial crustaceans. In Newfoundland they call them carpenters.

We have them.



(Illustration by Kate. See the rolled-up one?)

Last week I took Kate and Andy out for a walk around the bike path. Kate picked up a roly-poly that she found crawling across the road. She brought it home and named it Turtle.

Poor Turtle did not make it through the night. (Let us pause for a moment of silence....) So I went looking online and found some information, and this cute video, about how to keep pillbugs. It looked like it would be pretty interesting, and not difficult.

A couple of days after that we went out around the bike path again, and asked our neighbors Glory and Sky (담이와 하누리) to go with us. They packed along some Choco Pies and 귤 (little oranges) and we had a little picnic. We had some fun turning over rocks and looking at worms and things, and then we found some rotting wood that was full of pillbugs. Pillbug heaven. We put some of the wood in a plastic bag that I had brought along to put our garbage in, and brought it home.



We put the pillbugs and their wood in a little tub we've had sitting on our back porch. It used to have a flower in it, and now has a lot of dirt, dead leaves, a bit of moss, and something else coming up volunteer. A good home for pillbugs! Doug went out and picked up a spray bottle so we can keep things damp. (But not too damp.)



Kate drew some pictures to tape around the tub so the pillbugs would have something to look at. She's been having fun watching them and picking them up and naming them things like Daisy and Pug Bill. (It eventually dawned on me that Pug Bill is an anagram of pillbug.) Most of the ones we found are the non-rolling variety, but we do have a few rollers, too. We've been giving them little bits of fruit and corn. So far they seem to be doing okay!



Kate expounds upon pillbugs. (I have no idea if there are really 37--I have not counted them.)

I learned how to say pillbug in Korean. They're called 쥐며느리 (chui myeo neu ri), which means "mouse's daughter-in-law."

I tried getting some pictures with my macro lens. This is not easy. They keep moving.



It's interesting to see how their armor plates fit together, and the shape and texture. They are pretty cool little critters.

Northwest Trek

Isn't this pretty?  This is going to be one of those posts with way too many photos, so I wanted to start out with a nice one.  The sign said it was a red-flowering currant.

Last Thursday we went out to Northwest Trek. We'd been there once before, almost four years ago, when Kate was just a little older than Andy is now. (I never got around to blogging those photos.) It's a wildlife park with animals that are native to the area.



It was a cool, gray day, and had been raining off and on, but we decided to go anyway and didn't have any trouble. The lighting was nice for pictures, too!



Ready to go!



Kate films the golden eagle.



This bald eagle hopped right into the water to get a drink.




Spring growth!




Kate on the tram. It goes out through the free-ranging area, where you can see a lot of animals. (Mostly ungulates. In fact, aside from the trumpeter swans, and a mention of beavers, they were all ungulates.)



Moose! There are four moose in the park, and we got to see all of them. Apparently this is quite unusual.



Big bison bull right by the road.



Elk and bighorn sheep.



More bison. They were right in the road and had to be persuaded to move out of the way. (This is looking back, after we'd gone through.)



Andy says, "Whoa, lots of ungulates!"



Bachelor bighorns.



Elk growing new antlers.



When we took Kate at this age, she fell asleep on the tram too. Andy held out slightly longer and didn't conk out till the very end.

I realized I didn't post a picture of the mountain goats or blacktail deer. Also ungulates.



After the tram we moved Andy into the backback baby carrier so Kate could ride in the stroller.



Interesting view of an otter.



The cougar is not in the free-ranging area, for obvious reasons. It would eat the ungulates.



Neither is the grizzly.



"Are we having fun?"



"You bet!"



Snowy owl (blinding!)



And barn owls! Complete with fake barn. (The barn owl at the Point Defiance zoo has a fake barn, too. Must be a requirement or something.)



"I'm exploring!"



Everybody smile!



Both kids fell asleep on the way home. Big day!



A good time was had by all!