For one of my biology classes, I am required to start a nature journal. The requirement is to go out and find some organism and observe it for at least 20 minutes. We are to take copious notes and then write a small, two-page paper on what we observed (another reason for taking a stupid amount of field notes). So, in order to get this on the way, Rosis and I went on a hiking trip to Strouds Run (a state park in Athens County, OH). It has a large lake, a large number of trails, and a few creeks going through it, so I figured that it would be a lucrative trip.
We hiked for a little over an hour, and found nothing more interesting than a group of water striders. We heard birds chirpping in the distance, but couldn't actually observe them, which was rather vexing. I was about to give up hope when we ran across a Canadian Goose standing by the side of the lake in a group of high grass. Rosis took a few pictures, and I snuck up on it to get a closer look. And of course, while I was doing this, it decided to go for a little swim out into the middle of the lake...
so I crouched by a sandbank to watch the goose, taking notes of it's actions, and drawing a small map of the surroundings.
At about this time, when I was making a short description of the environment, I looked over to my left at another small sandbank, covered with cattails and high grass, and saw another goose... but this was a mother goose sitting on a nest
it was about 15-20 feet away from me, and we just stared at each other for a while. She was completely still, eyes fixed on me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, just because I've never seen a goose tending to it's nest in the wild before; just on TV. So I got Rosis to toss me the camera, and i got a few pictures. Hopefully I can upload a few of them sometime soon (too busy with other schoolwork at the moment).
So all in all, the trip was very worth it. I observed the two geese for about 45 minutes or so, and took two pages of hurriedly scribbled notes and maps and diagrams, etc. Hopefully I can write a decent paper about it, but I won't be able to write about the geese in that much detail because I could not get too close to it, and I didn't have binoculars (I left mine at home, and I'm over here at college, so that doesn't help). Wow, I am really rambling right now...
anyway, to sum it all up, today was pretty damned neat 
Until next time... (and maybe I'll actually start to update more often...)
We hiked for a little over an hour, and found nothing more interesting than a group of water striders. We heard birds chirpping in the distance, but couldn't actually observe them, which was rather vexing. I was about to give up hope when we ran across a Canadian Goose standing by the side of the lake in a group of high grass. Rosis took a few pictures, and I snuck up on it to get a closer look. And of course, while I was doing this, it decided to go for a little swim out into the middle of the lake...
so I crouched by a sandbank to watch the goose, taking notes of it's actions, and drawing a small map of the surroundings.
At about this time, when I was making a short description of the environment, I looked over to my left at another small sandbank, covered with cattails and high grass, and saw another goose... but this was a mother goose sitting on a nest
it was about 15-20 feet away from me, and we just stared at each other for a while. She was completely still, eyes fixed on me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, just because I've never seen a goose tending to it's nest in the wild before; just on TV. So I got Rosis to toss me the camera, and i got a few pictures. Hopefully I can upload a few of them sometime soon (too busy with other schoolwork at the moment).
So all in all, the trip was very worth it. I observed the two geese for about 45 minutes or so, and took two pages of hurriedly scribbled notes and maps and diagrams, etc. Hopefully I can write a decent paper about it, but I won't be able to write about the geese in that much detail because I could not get too close to it, and I didn't have binoculars (I left mine at home, and I'm over here at college, so that doesn't help). Wow, I am really rambling right now...
anyway, to sum it all up, today was pretty damned neat
Until next time... (and maybe I'll actually start to update more often...)