A Nature Drive for Science Sunday - Signs of Spring

We were so encouraged by our robin sighting, earlier this week, that as soon as the sun came out, and melted away the snow, we decided to take to the road, and look for signs of spring in the animal kingdom. And, yes I know most people take nature walks, but...

...I was just not feeling that adventurous. Besides which, I've heard the bears are awake! And, while that is a sign of spring, it's also one I prefer to see from the comforts of a moving minivan.

So anyway, back to what we found. Starting in town, the first animals we checked out were the ground squirrels. We observed that they are awake, and no longer hibernating. We also observed their cute, little, fuzzy faces. I had to keep reminding myself what destructive pests these guys can be. It was really easy to be seduced by their charms - they're soooo cute.

From the ground squirrels we moved on to a local duck pond, where we didn't see any ducklings, or goslings (there were quite a few angry, hissing, threatening geese around the pond, too - I was ready to head back to the ground squirrels). But, we did spot one hen sitting with an egg. We found it interesting that the egg was just there on the side of the pond, and not in any kind of a nest.

Next, we moved on to a small flock of sheep. Which, I am happy to say, had several lambs with them. You've got to love small town zoning. These are right in the middle of a neighborhood - which is why we took the picture from the van, as we were rolling by. People in Montana get jumpy when you start taking pictures of their homes.

Looking at the lambs, made us wonder about the big horn sheep, so we went in search of those. We spotted a flock of ewes, some of whom were very fat (suspiciously fat), but no lambs, yet.

The same was true for the deer we spotted along the way, both white tail, and mule deer. Lots of fat does, but no fawns. Though, with the deer we did notice more signs of change. We spotted several groups of yearlings (not pictured below) grouped together, which means they've been recently chased away from their mothers. So, the new fawns must be expected soon.

We didn't spot any bears, but on our way back into town, we did see some wild rabbits (they are all over town). The suckers move pretty fast, so I only got one sad, blurry picture of a couple, and totally missed the baby bunny - but it was very exciting to see.

So, from our expedition, we learned there are signs of early spring in the animal kingdom around our house, but we're not completely there, yet.

And, the children informed me, that while they might like to go back to feed the ducks, they have pretty well had enough nature, and would like to return to the exploding, fizzing, or gooing type of Science Sunday experiments we normally do. If you feel the same way, be sure to come back next week.

Or, check out the science going on around the blogosphere, at this week's Science Sunday link up hosted by Adventures in Mommydom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.