cmcknight's Journal

On an extremely rare occasion, I walked outside with gloves and a mask to meet my mom in town and go grocery shopping. At one o'clock, the sky was gray, but it was not raining. The air was a little too cold for my sweat coat but not cold enough where waiting outside for 45 minutes on Costcos' line unbearable. I attempted to take photos of animals I see on a regular basis, but cannot identify myself. I was a little scared to get close to these animals because I know they can be unpredictable. Completely this nature walk after completing the tree of life units gave me a wide range of animals to observe and I am really grateful for the simplicity of finding these animals and plants!

Finding fungi was extremely difficult. Normally, the path I walk down has many weird mushrooms growing, but this time, I could not find any. I then decided to look at trees. The trees, fortunately, had many different types of fungi growing on the same branch. The diversity was shocking. It was really cold, which is somewhat surprising considering flowerings were starting to bud. It was also extremely cloudy. I wish I found fungi with a wider range of colors, but the many shapes and textures reminded me of bacteria diversity and allowed me to realize that there is more life about me than what I visibly see.

Please Note: Some photos were taken on separate days but the photos from March 9 have a 30+ minute gap in between them.

Each day was surprisingly warm, especially March 9th! The European Starling photo was taken in Bronxville, NY. I was eating an ice cream sundae when I saw the beautiful, intricate colors of the bird. It hoped away from me quickly and I had to move carefully, as not to startle it, but quickly to get a proper photo. The Green Anole was taken in North Carolina! I was walking into a family member's house when my mother randomly told me to be wary of snakes. I was shocked and a little scared to see a lizard right in front of me! I am glad that it was labeled a green anole because we have talked about that species in class before! They are smaller than I imagined, however. The last three observations were taken in ChestnutHill. I did not see a wide variety of new species on this walk. I made observations about many of the species in the reservoir before and did not want to repeat them. The two bird species were found right next to each other and I had to make sure I took a photo of them quickly because they were hoping around fast. I took a picture of the tree because I was shocked that it maintained all of its leaves throughout winter.

Thanks to the environment's changing temperature, Monday, February 24 was a warm winter day. The sun was shining and many people took advantage of the warm weather and decided to walk their dogs. I walked around the reservoir right next to Boston College. In the pond, I saw different birds swimming. I think I saw a chick which is surprising because I do not think the mating season has even started yet. Shockingly, the pond still had a lot of ice in it. The temperature has been well over freezing point for a few days and today, it has been around fifty degrees Celcius. I was expecting all of the ice to have melted already. The trees surrounding the pond were bare for the most part, but a few still had pines on them.