I want them as my pet...

Ever since we moved into our present place, Kai was so fascinated by the birds of the air living in the nature reserve near our place. And every now and then, he would look out from our living room into the reserve and see the different birds.

And during our nature walks, we have spotted a couple on trees or flying past us. And some feeding around us when we took our break. And some times, we are not fast enough to capture them on camera or they are too far for us to capture them on camera unless Daddy is around and use his camera.

Instead of our usual walk, we decided to walk from our place all the way to the library to source for books which is a very long walk of about 2-3km. Since Kai standed running, I have made it a point for him to walk longer distance instead of using the car and public transport to tone up his leg muscles and it is also a good way of exercising for us.

It was a rewarding experience for us as we were able to spot a couple of birds along the way on the trees, near the parks. After getting all the books from the library, Kai decided to play for a short while at the playground just outside the library that we spotted a magpie up on a tree protecting her nest of magpie chicks. And having just read a book on Magpie in the library, Kai has decided to leave the playground quickly before the magpie swoop down and poke us.

While walking back, we spotted some Rainbow Lorikeet flying in pairs. And saw some nicely gardens and some colour butterflies that Kai stopped to look. They were so fast that I could not capture them. We decided to stop by the oval near our place for Kai to play at the playground before heading back home to read our books and have some fun learning together.

And this is the places where we spotted a huge flock of them, feeding at the oval. We also saw some mynah on the branches but we could not capture them on camera before they flew away.

We spent some time sitting on the benches observing this flock of birds that are fearless of us. They even came so near to us a couple of time that I could capture them on camera. And Kai proclaimed, "Mummy, they are my pets. I see them daily on the branches on the trees in the nature reserve near our place."

And Kai was so delighted that I could capture them so close this time and that he could watch them so close. After he was satisfied that I have taken enough photos of these birds that he went on to play at the playground before we headed home.

I am a bird that make raucous screeching noise. I have a crested that distinguish me from other and I live in a huge flock with my companion. I feed on wheat,oats, seeds of grasses, herbs and weeds. I would also feed on berries and insects. Who am I?

Can you make a guess of what we have capture on camera?

Click to see whether you have guessed correctly

It is the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo!




Book we are referring to:
1. The Gould League Book of Australian Birds

I spot, I spot...

We love our nature walks and with all the kind warning from our friendly neighbours, we do take more precautions when we are out enjoying the nature and God's creation. Daddy and I have always agreed that we have to make full use of our stay in the different countries we live and learn about the environment, cultures and traditions
of the countries.

We love the nature more than the malls, so from young Kai enjoys walks in the park, trekking and out at the beach looking for the treasures, nature has given us. So while at one of these walks, Kai and I were playing "I spot, I spot" quiz along the track while he was quick to spot this bird on the branch.

Kai has learnt from his experience that in order for us to capture the bird using our digital camera, he has to be very quiet and he has to be quick to snap the photos. And during this walk, I allowed Kai to use the camera to collect snapshots of plants and creatures he find along the way.

He took 4 to 5 shots of this birds and got so excited that he could not wait to get home to have it loaded onto the computer. As Kai has seem this bird before when he was in Vancouver and Daddy had told him about this bird, Kai was able to tell me what he has captured on the camera and point to me the bird sitting on the branch.


Click to see the photos Kai has taken

Kai has spotted a magpie. And since Daddy has told him about the aggressiveness of this bird, Kai was careful not to provoke it. When we were home, we checked up the information on the internet and noted the different between the one we have seen in Vancouver and this one that Kai has spotted.

Here's a list of websites that we have visited,

1. Birds in Backyards

2. Highbeam Encyclopedia

3. Living with Wildlife Magpie

4. New South Wales - Australian Magpie

There are still alot on our list that we will look up but for the time being, the above is the websites that we have visited to learn more about Magpie.

Kai was excited to see the photos of the bird on the camera and enjoyed reading the facts and information about the birds.

What species is this Lily?

We were walking past our neighbour's place when we spotted this lily near the gate. Kai knew that it is a lily as we love to have lilies in our place back home in Singapore. We love the sweet aroma given off by the flowers.

We are still searching to find out of this species, so if you know it. Do drop as a comment so that we can learn more about it.



Through our search on the internet, we have learnt that there are 110 species of lilies and they are under,
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Liliales
Family: Liliaceae
Genus: Lilium





For more informations

These are some websites that we used for our references,

1. Wikipedia

2. The Lily Species

A Species of Maple Trees?

We were taking a walk in Daddy's university when we came across this Maple tree look alike and Kai was playing with his remote control car while walking. And here and then, when he found something interesting, he would call out to us. This time round we were ahead of him. (We have come across along different species of Maple Trees in Vancouver and some in Japan, however, we have never really observe the trees. We have taken alot of photos during the autumn seasons.) And here we were looking at this Maple Tree look alike and found some interesting things about it.

We asked Kai to come closer to take a look at the leaf and the ball-like features which I presumed should be the fruits. We have decided that for the next few weeks if we go to the university, we would go and take closer look at what would happen to the ball-like features. Reading from the internet, I have found out that Maple tree has wing-like fruits and not ball-like, I was wondering what tree would this be.





Click here for more information

We think what we have found is a Sugar Maple Tree(Acer saccharum).



We were wondering whether the ball-like features are the fruits, for the next few weeks, we would be going to see the tree and see what happen to the ball-like features. Kai wanted to bring along paper and colour pencils to sketch the bark of the tree and also the leaf.

More information of the Maple trees, check out the links.
1.
Maple-Tree.com

2. Massmaple.com

We hope that we have gotten the right identification for this species, if anyone of you know more, do let us know through your comment.

We have finally find out what tree is this, Spinneretta (Another homeschooling mum from US) has suggested that it is a sycamore tree (Platanus occidentalis). And after searching and reading to the description about the tree, its leaves and its ball-like features, we are quite sure that it is a Sycamore.

More information from the internet after a quick search,

1. American Sycamore Tree

2. Tree Identification Tutorial

3. About.com:Foresty

Another reptile...

After pretending to be an astronaut in a MEG machine for about 30 minutes, I thought it is important to bring Kai out for longer walk and to run, jump and have fun outdoor. We took decided to go for a longer walk and met a friendly neighbour along the way with his lovely and friendly dog, Dexter.

On our long walk, we saw more species of birds and also spot another reptile. It is not very big and camouflage itself well in the green field. And it still so still that I was able to take a picture or two for Kai.

Care to guess what it is?


Found out the answer here

Take a look at the photos,



From the internet, we found out that it is a skink. And there are at least 17 species of it found in Tasmania, Australia. It is type of lizards.

More information on the links:

Australia Native Plants and Animals

A List of Australian Skinks

New South Wales Threatened Species

"Daddy's Pet"...

We have alot of photos taken during our daily nature walks that last us about 1 hour to 1.5 hours, I am still trying to sort out the photos and learning about the names of the plants, flowers, birds and even reptiles(I have a phonia for all the reptiles as well as creepy crawlies but with Kai, I have to be brave.).

Just Saturday while we were out enjoying the sun and taking in the view of God's beautiful creation. We spotted a interesting creature and it was out sunbathing or suntanning. Though Kai was excited, he was remained really quiet and observe this creature.

Daddy was with us since it was our family day on Saturday and he managed to capture a nice shot on his camera. When we were home, Daddy downloaded on his macbook to show Kai and the creature was facing the camera when the shot was taken and we started to call him "Daddy's Pet".


Click to see "Daddy's Pet"

Click on Picture to enlarge it.

We learnt that this is one species of Bearded Dragon through internet search. To find out more, check out the following websites:
1. Virtual Australia

2. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

3. Bearded Dragon Care and Breeding

4. Threaten Reptiles in New South Wales, Australia

Through our daily walk, we have learnt alot about plants and animals. And it is good to have the internet at home as well as the library nearby that we can always pop in to look for references.

See what we got...

We did not manage to go out for our daily walk today as Kai has requested to bake some muffins. We were sitting near the windows at our living room facing the nature reserve taking our breakfast while we spot mystery guest came into our yard for a visit.

Kai was elated and it was the first time he saw such a big bird so close to us and it is not in capivity. He ran and grab the camera and asked me to take a couple of shots while he stood rooted to the ground observing the bird.

We were so glad that even without going out for our daily walk, we were able to look at some unusual bird at our doorstop.



Take a look!

Facts about Turkey:

1. MSN Encarta

2. Animal Facts: Turkey

3. Let's talk Turkey

4. Australia Brush Turkey

We looked up the internet about this bird and learnt alot more about it. Kai only knows that we eat this bird during Thanksgiving and Christmas before we read more about it on internet and now he knows alot more.

Out at Meadowbank...

We were out at Meadowbank for a stroll and watched some people fishing at the park. We walked around the bank and Kai saw some little baby crabs and he was so excited and asked Daddy to pick up one for him to observe. I did not bring along a camera as it was a last minute decision to go there before we go shopping.

We have a good time relaxing there and oberving the crabs on the sand. And when we returned home, Kai went straight to sketch a picture. And he wanted to learn more about crabs and their habitat.



Take a look at Kai's drawing

School of Stingrays Migration...

Have anyone seen mass stingrays migration? We have barbecued Stingrays, cooked stingrays in sauces but how many have seen school of stingrays migrating?

Kai, myself and Daddy have seen live stingray in aquarium and also at Underworld World in Sentosa but we cannot fathom how many is a school of stingray migrating till another mum who is also homeschooling in Singapore forward the articles and photographs to me.

We were caught dumbfounded looking at the number of creatures migrating in mass and the whole ocean looks shining in gold with the sunray reflected on those migrating creatures.


Read about it and looks at the photographs

Looking like giant leaves floating in the sea thousands of Golden Rays are seen here gathering off the coast of Mexico

The spectacular scene was captured as the magnificent creatures made one of their biannual mass migrations to more agreeable waters.

Gliding silently beneath the waves they turned vast areas of blue water to gold off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula .

Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer, stumbled across the phenomenon while looking for whale sharks.

She said: 'It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.



'It's hard to say exactly how many there were but in the range of a few thousand.



'We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too.
'I feel very fortunate I was there in the right place at the right time to experienced nature at his best.'



Measuring up to 7ft (2.1 meters) from wing-tip to wing-tip, Golden rays are also more prosaically known as cow nose rays.



They have long, pointed pectoral fins that separate into two lobes in front of their high-domed heads and give them a cow-like appearance.
Despite having poisonous stingers they are known to be shy and non-thr eatening when in large schools.


The population in the Gulf of Mexico migrates, in schools of as many as 10,000, clockwise from western Florida to the Yucatan

After looking through the email and explain to Kai. We look at another link on the MailOnline.

See what we found...

We usually takes our nature walk after I completed my laundry in the morning and we usually will be out of the house from 9.30am in the morning and will not be back till about an hour and a half later.

There are days, that we went round looking at flowers, trees and all sorts or plants, days we look at birds and observe them at a close distance and other days at insects. Though I am afraid of creepy crawlies, I tried to be brave for Kai (Just that I make sure, all precautions are taken to make sure none came into the house.).

We have seen this little creatures around for almost for many days already but we find it so hard to catch a close shot of it. And we are so delighted that we managed to get one cooperative one today.




Take a look at our close shot

This is the Rainbow Lorikeet that we were able to observe near us and it was not afraid at all unlike the other that flow away when we tried to two pictures of it.

These birds are so beautiful and they are very adorable.


Links:
Parrot-and-Conure-World.com

Rainbow Aviaries

We are planning to look at more facts and find out more on them.

Life cycle of frog

Kai loves animals and he is very curious about them. And today, he insisted that I should re-read to him , "Frog". After reading, he was bugging me to keep some tadpoles.

It is so interesting to note that through our couple of months of learning, Kai could remember the different stages of the life cycle of the frog and I told him that the toad share a similar life-cycle as the frog.

And we have decided to look into the different between the toad and frog in our next studies.

A life cycle chart of the frog is still in the progress of making and I will put it up once we have completed it together.

What we spotted!!

Guess what we spotted today? We took our daily nature walk as usual around the estate, Kai was the first to spot this lovely creature. Make a guess what creature we spotted!

Kai was ecstatic when he spotted it and we moved quietly closer to it. And finaly, we managed to take a nice shot of it.

Make a guess from this riddle taken from Braingle.

I am only small in stature, and I love to chuckle and laugh.In fact, I am infamous for my apparent sense of humour.My diet seems strange to some, and the way I prepare my food appears somewhat bizarre.My spouse and I share an equal role in raising the children,and I am totally devoted to my 'other half'.

What am I?


Let's find out

Did you guess it correctly? It's a Kookaburra.


Some facts about:
The Australian Laughing Kookaburra.

The Laughing Kookaburra is instantly recognisable in both plumage and voice and measures 40 - 45 cm in length. The chuckling or laughing voice gives this species its English name is a common and familiar sound throughout the bird's range. The loud 'koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-kaa-kaa-kaa' is often sung in a chorus with other individuals.

Laughing Kookaburras feed mostly on insects, worms and crustaceans, although small snakes, mammals, frogs and birds may also be eaten. Small prey is eaten whole, but larger prey is killed by bashing it against the ground or tree branch. Laughing Kookaburras often become quite tame around humans and will readily accept scraps of meat. This 'pre-processed' food is still beaten against a perch before swallowing.

The birds are believed to pair for life. Both sexes share the incubation duties and both care for the young. Other Laughing Kookaburras, usually offspring of the previous 1-2 years, act as 'helpers' during the breeding season. Every bird in the group shares all parenting duties.

Kai was so facinated with the laugh of the Kookaburra that we have decided to learn a very old children's song, "Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree".

For the lyrics of this song, KIDddles Song Page.

Our Surprised Visitor

As we were heading out for our daily walk, we found a surprised visitor at our doorstep. Kai got really excited and bugging me non-stop to adopt it.

Our Surprised Visitor

We spent a couple of minutes observe the movement of the caterpillar. Kai insisted, "Mummy, please look for a container. Keep the caterpillar till it comes a butterfly."

I went to the kitchen and found a plastic peanut butter empty container, clean it and took some leaves and transferred the larva into the container and cover it with a plastic sheet and make some small holes on the plastic. We kept the caterpillar at home and went on our usual walk, enjoying God's creation.

Kai could not stop talking about his caterpillar and told me to look for the book by Eric Carle on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" which we used to read when he was a toddler. I took this as an opportunity to revisit the "Lifecycle of the Butterfly" with him.

We plan to use egg cartonbox to work on a caterpillar and then transformed it into a butterfly later part of the day.