Welcome to the 33rd edition of Windows on Wildlife! If you have a recent post or photo about wildlife you’d like to share (it can be anything: birds, insects, mammals…) scroll down to the end of the post and add your site. I will compile and post a summary of all additions the following week. Please don’t forget to link back here and visit other blogs that have articles to share. Thanks for stopping by!
Last summer, Oldest Son and I participated in Firefly Watch, a Citizen Science project through the Museum of Science, Tufts University and Fitchburg State College. Participants share weekly data collected from their own backyards. We’re gearing up (a bit late, but…) to contribute again this year.
From the Firefly Watch webpage:
The Museum has teamed up with researchers from Tufts University and Fitchburg State College to track the fate of these amazing insects. With your help, we hope to learn about the geographic distribution of fireflies and their activity during the summer season. Fireflies also may be affected by human-made light and pesticides in lawns, so we hope to also learn more about those effects.
I don’t get to do much ecological monitoring work anymore, so participating in Citizen Science projects is an awesome way for me to feel connected to larger science projects going on around the country. And I love that it’s a fun way to teach my son about research and volunteering.
If this project sounds interesting, or you’d like to learn more about participating in Citizen Science projects (most don’t require any prior experience) visit my friend Michelle’s blog – Rambling Woods. She has a great compilation of Citizen Science Projects and links – see if any of them sound appealing to you and/or your family. Have you ever participated in a Citizen Science project (Christmas Bird Count, Project Feeder Watch and Frog Watch USA are some of the better known ones)? If not, would you consider it? Let us know in the comments!
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Another Jennifer shared some photos of her at-home ‘wildlife’ – cute, cute, cute! Helen at The Wandering Albatross has a fascinating account of her time in the Amazon Jungle. Meghana at Around the World posted video on Seal watching near Norwich(UK). Rob Graumans at the Young Socrates shares some thoughts on the differences between humans and cats. Donna on Palawan posted a wonderfully informative article on pangolins, and Mariam at the Byoutiful Blog has a terrific post on hummingbirds that’s a must-read even if you think you know these birds!
Thanks to all our contributors this week!! Share your wildlife posts and/or pictures below.
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I’ve posted for others who have written about the Christmas Bird Count. Sounds fun, to do one of these citizen projects. I would probably enjoy it more if I could interest a family member (not likely).
I can understand about wanting to get your family involved – I’m far more likely to do things if they’re engaged as well. By the same token, if you find a project that really sounds fun, most of them have a pretty minimal time commitment; you never know!
This is a great post and I am happy to hear that you are starting to watch for them. Sadly I am not seeing the usual numbers of fireflies and no monarchs either….. Michelle
Yeah, I’m not seeing them in the numbers I remember either. Glad we’re able to find a few, though – it’s a fun project. Not sure if we have monarchs yet – there are eggs on my milkweed, but not sure that they’re monarch.
Sounds like a neat project to be involved with. My sons would have a lot of fun with that!
I bet they would – you guys should give it a try!
Great shot of the firefly and very informative post. To answer your question about bird baths, I use large plant saucers. I have them on my deck as a few in my front yard as well as one stone bird bath which is the only one designed to be used as a bird bath. I usually have at 5 or 6 (sometimes more) bird baths all together (front, back and deck)..
That’s a fabulous idea, thank you! I’m hesitant to ever put feeders out because we definitely have bears in our neighborhood, but putting some bird baths around is a great way for us to keep helping our resident birds.