Of Books and Boys and Other Stuff » temperate forest

Osprey Encounters

W.H. Beck — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:32:49 +0000

Do you know what an osprey is? They’re birds of prey, like eagles, only a little smaller. (Ospreys hunt in our Follow That Food Chain: A Temperate Forest book.) When the pesticide DDT almost wiped out the bald eagles, it also devasted the osprey population. They’ve been endangered in Wisconsin–but no more! Their numbers have grown so that yesterday they were taken off the state endangered species list.

I’m lucky; I’ve grown up watching ospreys (and bald eagles) diving for fish on our lake up north. But my favorite osprey moments have to be at our town’s local ballpark. For the last few years, a pair of ospreys have built a nest in the lights–and the roar of the crowds, the brat smoke, the lights, even that goofy announcer and his keyboard don’t seem to bother them one bit. Can you see them in this picture Mr. E took last summer?

Nudibranchs and Blog Reviews

W.H. Beck — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:44:28 +0000

First, the blog reviews: we’ve gotten some nice ones about our Follow That Food Chain series lately, and I realized I’ve neglected to compile them here.

SimplyScience blogged about our temperate forest book, saying, “Interactive and entertaining, A Temperate Food Chain provides a fun-filled trek though the forest habitat as it shows specific examples of energy flow.”

A Patchwork of Books read our savanna book and says, “The really cool thing about these books is how the reader gets to control the story, much like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books we all love so much. You can choose what a particular animal eats next, leading to a new page filled with cool facts and brilliant photographs.”

Practically Paradise writes, “With 64 pages and ample end material, these are useful to my middle schoolers but are written at a fourth grade level intended for grades 3-5. These unusual titles demand reader interaction as you pick which tertiary consumer you will follow through the pages. (Think Choose Your Own Adventure for the food chain).”

And most recently, SimplyScience profiled our coral reef book, “This particular book is especially good because it includes so many invertebrates and other varied species that are not well-known to children within the complex ecosystem of a coral reef. Animals such as fan worms, corals, sawfish, parrotfish, moray eels, nudibranchs, and sea urchins are among the consumers, with the producers and well-explained phytoplankton included in the chain information.” She also includes two fun activities to do with our books:

“Activity 1

Create your own food chain by following one of your choosing from the book. Make a diagram to show the energy flow.

Activity 2

Look through the book and find the invertebrates. Choose one invertebrate and look it up. Find out in which group it is classified according to the phylum, class, or order. Then find other animals in each group.”

And finally, the nudibranchs. I’ll admit it, seeing the mention of the nudibranchs made me smile. We’ve had many an immature, silly joke around our house about nudibranchs since writing that book. (For the record, it’s pronounced “noo-di-braank” and they’re also known as “sea slugs”…which is kinda funny in its own right.) Just don’t get us started on African wild asses…

(picture from laszlo-photo on Flickr’s Creative Commons)

What’s Your Secret Site?

W.H. Beck — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:00:50 +0000

Husband and I were talking about this with friends this weekend. Do you have a a place online that you frequent regularly–but that would surprise everyone to know about? (And no, I’m not talking about THOSE kind of websites. I’m a children’s librarian, for heaven’s sake! Please don’t spoil my innocence.)

My website confession was this one: the Wisconsin Almanac. I don’t farm, hunt, fish, or even take care of my yard very well. But every week, I find myself checking in to see how Wisconsin crops are doing (look!: manure hauling was slowed by wet weather last week, but apples and potatoes are in fine shape), what I should be doing to my lawn and garden (fertilizing and planting bulbs), and how the seasons are changing around me (salmon are slowing down, but spiders are active and “ballooning”–remember that scene from Charlotte’s Web?). I don’t do anything with this information each week (as, sadly, my lawn can attest), but I love perusing it and knowing the bigger picture of the world outside my window. And I keep coming back to it every week.

So…what’s your secret site?

Black Bears in the News (and in Aisle 5)

W.H. Beck — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:00:39 +0000

The very first animal I wrote about in the Follow That Food Chain series was a black bear. She and her cubs were in the proposal that ended up selling and becoming our habitat series. So I have a special fondness for them. And living in northern Wisconsin, you see black bears. Sometimes in the woods, maybe in your yard, but…in the grocery store?

That’s right, last week a black bear wandered into the Marketplace in Hayward–a place we’ve shopped many a time while at the cabin. He lingered in the liquor section. Here’s the clip.

Of course, the joke around here is that this was the Hamm’s beer bear. Does anyone remember this guy? Or was this just a local commercial?

And now I’ve got that song stuck in my head…

Keeping Our Critters

W.H. Beck — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:04:51 +0000

My mom’s a genius. (Most moms are—it just takes a while for us to realize it). Look what she made my kids for the lake.

Mr. E and the Critter Keeper

We’re calling it a “critter keeper.”

Some background: our cabin is very much a “cabin” and not a “cottage”. In other words, there’s no carpet, cutesy northwoods décor, or even a TV or a phone. It’s much more akin to camping than what most people call their “cabins.”

At the cabin, Mr. E and Colonel Mustard love sloshing around the weedy, muddy shore in their tall boots, exploring, fishing, and catching things. For the last few years, we had an old aquarium that we’d fill with water. They kept their critters there—snakes, toads, frogs, salamanders, fish, water bugs, you name it, for the weekend. But it was a pain to fill the tank, and we’d always worry about adding fresh water to it, feeding whatever was in it, or if it was in the sun and the captives were getting too warm. Not to mention that it had a big crack in it and we were waiting for the day it’d break.

But no more! Nana came through with the critter keeper, which she ingeniously designed out of some window screen, garden stakes, and a chain. She sewed a loop around the bottom, threaded the chain through, sewed the screen in a circle, and added sleeves for the stakes. There’s no bottom. All you do is unroll it and stake it where you want it—land or water. The weight of the chain pulls the screen down to the bottom. Of course, it’s not perfectly escape-proof, but since we always release our animals anyway, we’re okay with the occasional fugitive. Now we’re got a pen for our finds that stays cool, keeps fresh water available, and even give the critters access to a snack or two—all in their natural environment. And when we’re done, we pull up the stakes and roll it up for the next weekend.

Thanks, Nana!

Aunt Ruby, Nana, Colonel Mustard and the Critter Keeper

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Rolly Polly Fish Heads

W.H. Beck — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:34:58 +0000

Colonel Mustard and I went for a canoe paddle around our bay. We landed on a sandbar to hike around. Aside from crunchy, empty snail shells, gobs of goose poop, and murky puddles full of jelly globs of eggs and squirming wrigglers, we came across lots and lots of…fish bits.

What do you think picked these fish apart? We searched around for clues. We think we’ve solved the puzzle. What’s your guess?