The Magnifying Glass

Through The Lens

gathering in the hood by Ella Pedersen

chestnut blur by a wild and precious life

We hope you are starting to gather some of your favorite nature finds to share with other Magnifying Glass families in the Nature Exchange. Be sure to sign up before November 2nd and once the Exchange starts, please be sure to post pics of your collections both sent and received!

Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

---Lucia

Through The Lens

showing off his speckled belly by Shona Leah

Can you spot the frog? by lisaclarke

I thought we could continue with the froggy fun that Dawn started earlier this week and don't forget to let us know if you are interested in a nature exchange. It's always fun to get mail, but especially fun to get bits and pieces from a different part of the world.

Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

---Lucia

Through The Lens

Net by To The Outskirts {Dawn}

Dragonfly Larvae by kellyireland-wearehere

 

Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

---Lucia

Through the Lens

 Untitled by Juliepersons

Looking Up the Columbia River by Hiker Mama

Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

Through the Lens

Dandelion Seeds by SingingSam

Nurture by Kristin~Mainemomma

 

Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

Through the Lens

Meet Goldie by Eren|This Vintage Chica

Frog Eggs by Krista (me)

It's that time of year for eggs and hatchlings. We have a wonderful and growing assortment of eggs in the TMG Flickr group right now: silkworm eggs, whelk egg casings,praying mantis egg cases, a mermaid's purse, and these very colorful rock eggs.  What's growing or hatching in your neck of the woods?

 Through the Lens is a weekly series which highlights recent submissions to the TMG Flickr pool. Show us what your family has been exploring and let us peek through your lens.

Through the Lens

Take a look at all of the wonderful new additions to the Flickr group. Thank you! We are starting up a new series in which we highlight a few of each week's submissions. Show us what you have been up to  by letting us peek through your lens. Here are three of our favorites from last week:

Nature Detective by MrHRdg

Nest by Kellyireland-wearehere

The Big Picture by cyndib_2001

On Backyard Birding.

Before we moved to Vermont, I always thought of backyard birding as a fairly humble enterprise.  My daughter, I think, had similar feelings.  As much as we love a fat little chickadee or a busy sparrow, both of us have always had a fondness for particularly large birds, or those with a little extra flair.  Storks, herons, eagles.  Not your typical backyard feeders.

But, we have both also been long-time followers of the ongoing hunt for the Ivorybill Woodpecker in the Southern United States.  I've read most of the books that have been written on the subject, and Mariam and I have listened to a number of interviews and podcasts about the search.  The result has been a growing love for woodpeckers, both large and small.  However, considering our predilection for the big and fancy birds, the pileated woodpecker (the largest woodpecker after the Ivorybill) quickly became a household favorite and the bird that we most wanted to see in our own yard.  

So of course, the day that he showed up outside the living room window was an exciting one.  Mariam was at school, so I quickly snapped this photo to share with her.  And the experience made me realize that backyard birding can be a completely different experience when you approach it with patience and a watchful eye.  I wasn't out in the yard with binoculars when our woodpecker came to call; I was sitting at the dining room table eating some toast.  But I've become so accustomed to glancing around at the trees in the yard, just in case, that I made a pretty good find.  And that is exactly what I've been trying to teach my girl.  Be observant, take the time to look up.  This has served us well.  We add this pileated woodpecker sighting to a list that includes cardinals, yellow bellied sapsuckers and even a turkey vulture.

All spotted right outside our door.  

--- Annie

The Weather Where You Are: The Pictures.

Stacy sent in this photo of blue skies and sunshine from her home in Florida.  Beautiful blue sky and actual green plant life.  Sigh.

 

Sparklee lives in the Rocky Mountains where they've had some snow, although maybe not as much as we've had here in the Northeast. 

 

Anne sent in this photo from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Certainly some snow, but you can still see the trees and even a bit of bare earth here and there.  I'm assuming we have ground under all the snow here in Vermont, but no longer have any proof.

 

This picture courtesy of se7en, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  Yes, that's right.  There is an entire half of the planet where it isn't winter at all.

 

Fellow TMG contributor Nancy sent me this picture of the wet, heavy snow that fell in her corner of the world.  Nancy also mentioned that they had thundersnow in the D.C. area during the last big storm that rolled through.  Do you know about this?  Thundersnow is essentially a rare type of thunderstorm where instead of rain falling, it snows.  I heard about thundersnow for the first time about a week ago from someone here in Vermont and then Nancy told me about their thundersnow just a few days later.  I will admit to being a little jealous, because it sounded very dramatic and exciting.  

Anyway, I got my chance to experience it first hand when a huge snowstorm arrived here last night, complete with booming thunder, lightning so bright it lit up the house and woke me up, and a foot of snow.  Pretty cool, actually.  Oh, except for shoveling all that snow this morning.  

Here's hoping that wherever you are, the weather is just right!

--- Annie

The Weather Where You Are.

 

Edit: Thanks for all of the photos so far, everyone!  I'm not likely to get the next post written until Sunday, so if you would still like to send a photo of the weather where you are, there's time.  Email your photo to me at [email protected].

Hello, all!  I don't know where you are living, but depending on your location, you might have had some unusual, interesting or challenging weather this week.  Here in Vermont, we got our first official snow day in two years, something which takes quite a bit of weather to bring about.  Vermonters take great pride in just getting on with things no matter what the outdoor conditions are like!

With over 2,000 miles of the United States and something like 100 million people affected by this week's storm, it made the news as a rare weather event that an unusual number of people would experience together.  Wind, rain, thunder, lighting, snow and ice.  There was plenty of everything to go around, and schools from Texas to Maine have been closed.  So, I got a little bit curious.  What is the weather like where you are?  

If you have a picture of what it looks like in your part of the world, whether you have sun or snow, send it to me via email at [email protected] between now and Friday afternoon.  I'd love to share your photos here on TMG so that we can all see a little bit of what is outside one another's windows!  

---Annie