Embarking On Our OHC Summer Photo Challenge

Oh my,  it’s been so long since I have posted a Nature Hour post! The truth is that I have been a bad homeschool mommy and been pushing the books and neglecting our usually reserved nature/art/composer time that happens on Fridays – hence my comment on Under An English Sky’s FB page yesterday.

Anyhoo, when I told my girls that we were going back to our old schedule – 4 days book work and then Friday’s for art and nature, they were thrilled – honestly, the whole afternoon had them smiling and being as sweet as pie.

I decided that we would start our nature time off with a bang and announced that we would be following Barb’s Summer Photo Challenge. They were THRILLED.

I created a family Pinterest Summer Photo Challenge board and invited them both on as pinners – they loved this idea! So the idea is that we keep our eyes open all summer long for things in nature – on our walks and off – that fit into the Summer Challenge categories. I have printed off barbs Summer Challenge page, cut out the list and stuck it on our refrigerator so that it is a constant reminder.

Follow Shirley Ann’s board Our Family Summer Photo Challenge Board 2014 on Pinterest.

Today’s lesson started off with a reading from Edith Holden’s ‘Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady.’ We read the entire June entry – there was much discussion, comparing our June to her June so many years ago. We decided that on our nature walk we would look out for some of the wild flowers she mentions in her diary. Armed with our cameras we set off.

We saw so many of the flowers mentioned in the diary, here’s our list:

• Heath Spotted-Orchid
• Meadow Crane’s-bill
• White and Red Clover
• Common Vetch
• Yellow Flag Iris
• Buttercups
• Common Birds-foot-trefoil
• Ox-eye Daisy
• Marsh Thistle
• Spear Thistle
• Common Knapweed
• Cow Parsley (Queen Anne’s Lace)
• Dog Roses
• and Blackberry flowers (with developing berries already!)

Bird Life Spotted:

• Swans
• Crested Grebe’s with babies on their backs
• Loads of duck species with their youngsters
• a flock of Long-Tailed Tits
• Magpies
• Coots – again with little babies

Other interesting finds:

The tiniest of frogs spotted by Miss J-L – she has eyes like a hawk I tell you!

A tree laden with apples – (I’ll be back in the autumn little tree!)

The prettiest moths (check out our Summer Challenge Pinterest Board for the name)

So – an awesome nature hour (or two) today. We are looking forward to doing the Bat Study at some point as we do have bats in our area, although I have not seen them yet.

So there we go – first nature post of the summer!

Have a great weekend all…