Welcome to week 8 of our one year pond study. For the rest of the posts in this series please see here.
This week we were going to revisit our tree study. I had lots of ideas and activities planned, but as we are finding out nature has a plan all of her own. We are merely spectators to all her glory and that is just what we ended up doing this week – observing the wonder of Creation. We stood in awe: spring had sprung upon the pond, abounding with enthusiasm, displaying with flourish an abundance of new gifts especially for our delectation. Please be patient with me. There are many photos. I hope you are as spell bound as we were.
The weather was glorious for our visit. There were many familiar faces:
We had all just got over the excitement of the turtle when L10 shouted that I needed to take a photo of her trousers. Eh? It seemed an insect had landed on her and she wanted me to capture it on film. Loving my camera more and more each week, I happily obliged:
When we returned home we attempted to identify the insect using this website. The fly was very definitely an Alder Fly. They say ‘Adult Alder Flies are blackish-brown, with dark, lacy wings which they fold in a tent-like manner along the length of their body. They are distinguished from stoneflies by the lack of any ‘tail’ bristles.’
As I was snapping away, movement in the water caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what it was, until I zoomed in and captured this:
Again we went home and looked up images of bees mating and found some very similar looking pictures. Note in our picture one of the bees is larger than the other; however, I’m really not sure it was big enough to be a queen bee. But what would I know?
No sooner had a captured them (doing whatever they were doing) I heard a yell from C10, she had found frogs spawn:
Then of course we had to find the frog:
No, not really! We did find this frog but it was in our back garden a few days later. It was too tempting not to include it. I know I cheated. But I cheated honestly.
Next week, unless we are yet again blown away by something else amazing, we will be concentrating on our tree. I’ll also post some pictures of our April journal page. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our nature studies!
Wow.
I know! My appreciation for God’s creation is sky rocketing each time I visit the pond!
wonderful photos here! its lovely to see some signs of spring at last too , isnt it\? x
I completely agree, sunshine at last!!
That terrapin was worth waiting for! Amazing photos, Claire!
Isn’t he amazing? It more than made up for the fact there was no Mandarin duck this week!
Oh my, what a beautiful batch of photos!! I can’t decide what is my favorite; they’re all so good. Your pond study is so inspiring that we’ve started to visit a pond as well. And your ducks are awesome.
Would you be interested in participating in my new Nature in the Neighborhood blog hop? If so, stop by my blog and link up.
I’ll stop by now!! Thanks so much for the encouraging comment!
I love all the pictures! Keep them coming. How exciting to see so many new faces at the pond!
I know! It’s like a treasure hunt every time we go. I’m learning so much and it is so very interesting!
The terrapin is such a rare sight (in the wild) these days. What a great find!
I believe it has been there a few years. We’ve certainly seen him before (prior to starting the pond study). It made our day. So exciting!
How lovely to see a terrapin.
Great signs of Spring and such great photos.
Thank you! Have I mentioned before just how much I am enjoying this pond study?
Don’t blame you :O)
Beautiful photos, Claire! I’m laughing at your “honest cheating”, too. Love it!
I’m not entirely sure there is such a thing as ‘honest cheating’! I so badly wanted to show a photo of the frog, I had to slip it in somewhere!
Wonderful Spring finds at the pond, we missed our frogs this year, they hopped off without us! Loving the terrapin, I don’t think I have ever seen one before except in a zoo! Thank you for linking to Country Kids.
I can’t believe we found frogs spawn this year, so excited! (it doesn’t take much!)
Lovely photos! Great spring day.
It is so lovely to have heat at long last. It makes everything seem more fun!
How did you manage to capture the bee picture? It is so clear?
I used the zoom as much as I could and when I got home I used the word press cropper, which allows you to enlarge a small area, and surprisingly this is how it turned out! I was really pleased!
Awwww, look at all the animals all twitterpated (the one Bambi reference I find amusing, okay most anything with Thumper is).
Love that picture of the bees, it’s amazing!
You are SO funny!!
I love my bee picture as well. I zoomed in on a blob- imagine my surprise when that came up!
Wow, that pond is amazing! I love the terrapin photo.
Thanks for linking to Fun Sparks. xx
Thank you.
I loved looking at all your photos. What a great nature study at the pond, so much to see!
Thank you!