Cedar Waxwings on Viburnum Pencil Sketch

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As a homeschooling Dad I try to keep some of our studies on the sly. We don’t really stop our studies when all the other kids are on break… instead we do what I call the “Summer Slow” where we try to keep our studies wrapped up by lunch. That keeps us making progress in critical things like math which are easy to forget, but it leaves us additional time for fun projects, extra sports, art, music and other great things.

Yesterday, the three of us decided to do a one hour “BioBlitz” as part of our school day. Our goal was to find as many different animal species as possible in one hour. We couldn’t identify everything to species, but would tally each unique specimen. We broke things down by vertebrates, invertebrates, then further down into mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, arthropods, arachnids, insects, isopods, mollusks and so on. If we included plants we wouldn’t have been able to write fast enough to take it all down! In the end we had a great time getting 94 species! We had two definite high lights… a boldly patterned, baby milk snake was under the stones in the garden. It was thinner that a typical # 2 pencil, but a whole lot prettier…and faster. It was long gone by the time I got the camera. The other great find was a nest of cedar waxwings well hidden in a tree by our mailbox. I’ve come across cedar waxwing nests before and it is always an exciting find.

Cedar Waxwing Pencil Sketch
Cedar Waxwing Pencil Sketch

 

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