Some bees use perfect pitch to release pollen from flowers, a technique called buzz pollination. (Gosh, I wish I could sing a perfect note on cue!) Buzz pollination is like a secret password to gain entry into a clubhouse, because tone-savvy bees can unlock and release the pollen from some flowers when they know the password. Buzz …
Tag Archives: scavenger hunt
Sunflowers: An American Treasure
It’s August! As you walk around your neighborhood, watch out for sunflowers in gardens, or you might spy them in bouquets at the local farmer’s market. Stop and take a minute to appreciate the sunflowers you see, because they’re an American treasure. Most of us know what a sunflower looks like, and you can probably …
How to Make a Flower Chain
Ice cream is the best! You know what else is the best? Lazing around on a nice summer day and doing whatever you want to do. Loafing, lazing and putzing can bring great joy to the inner child in all of us. Don’t forget to laze. A proper putzing is done without a smart phone …
Let’s Have a Seed Hunt
Have you ever stopped to think how many seeds you run across every day? Seeds are everywhere in our daily lives. Seeds show up in every meal we cook. There are seeds to observe during each walk in our neighborhood. Seeds sometimes look very different from one another. The different sizes of seeds can be …
It’s a Red Maple Flower!
There are things in life that you can count on happening like clockwork. Even more accurate than a groundhog’s shadow, you know that spring has arrived when you see the flowers of maple trees scattered on the ground. Did you know maple trees have flowers? They do! To find red maple flowers during your springtime …
It’s a Milkweed Pod!
The plight of bees and monarchs are a cause for concern, and you might wonder what you can do to help them rebuild their populations. Allowing a few common milkweed plants, which can be found in at least 39 states and seven regions of Canada, to grow near your home is a fantastic way to …
Algae Art
A few summers ago I met an artist in Maine who makes beautiful framed artwork from algae. Using algae as a medium was news to me, so she explained where she finds her different types of algae and the best times of day to collect it. Algae come in various shades of greens, red and …
It’s a Green Stink Bug!
The stink bugs I usually see are brown, but this one I snapped a photo of last summer is a green stink bug. You should be able to find this stink bug throughout North America as you are on your nature scavenger hunt. One summer during college I assisted in an aquatics laboratory. Any time …
It’s a Tulip Tree!
I first learned about tulip trees when I attended college at University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. In my plant identification class we learned the nitty-gritty details of classifying trees by their bark texture, leaf shape, arrangement of branches, flowers and so on. There were two trees in particular we learned about that stuck with me. One …
It’s Chicory!
A few years ago I said to my husband, “Ugh, I really gotta dig out that chicory from the grass next to the road.” To which he responded, “What’s chicory?” Well, I couldn’t believe he’d never heard of chicory, “You know, that purple flowering plant that’s next to each mile of highway you’ve ever driven …