More

Here are a couple of great websites we've been using to try to ID some of the many birds & trees we've been watching:

Bird calls - this is enature- we just found today and have been trying to ID plants, animal

we've loved seeing these trees with smooth grey bark. maybe an American beech?

Nature Pics

I thought moving up to Baltimore we wouldn't see much nature- I was really wrong! We've seen tons. Sherwood Gardens is just a couple blocks from our house. Beautiful! We've been there lots and lots- during the day me and the kids would go with nature journals or friends or with James for a nice after dinner walk. Peak of tulip season was Easter- I put some pics on our blog of our beautiful morning there- so many different colors of tulips. We also loved seeing a close-up painting of a tulip at the Museum of Art. We've also loved seeing all the different trees- in NC most trees have a straight tree trunk- here there are tons of different shapes.

At the end of tulip season, the azaelas came into bloom- several different colors. And now the roses are blooming. Hopefully some of my phone pics turn out good too bc I keep forgetting to take the camera on our walks. We've seen tons of robins, a few cardinals and blue jays, a couple orioles, a million (at least ) squirrels, and lots of dogs out for walks.
Ivy all over- unfortunately also lots of poison ivy.
The boys were real excited to find this outside

Spring Is Here!

K & C practiced making baskets from plants out in the yard.
First flowers
Spring buds
C looking for signs of spring
Beautiful Bradford Pears

Beautiful Spring

We've been really enjoying the spring- spending lots of time outdoors: hiking, biking, going to Clark Park, Cape Fear Botanical Garden, and sitting in the front yard admiring God's creation.

Here are some pics K took in our front yard

we've been listening to woodpeckers, checking out their handiwork, learning about sap, and how to tell how old a tree is.
checking out pine cones
enjoying the beautiful azaleas
this is the construction for the new building at the Botanical Garden
a dead bush in our front yard- we've been talking about plant disease
looking up close at our apple tree to see how the blossoms, apples grow & counting our apples before they grow

Spiky Balls

we have been out lots enjoying the beautiful weather (except for the rainy days last week.) when we went to Clark park last week to get our new nature tote bag (birds), the park ranger was leading a nature walk on fall leaves. It was little old for the boys but I learned some and we got great coloring books which helped us learn to recognize some trees. We went around the yard and ID'd the trees. I had the great ID to sign the first letter of each tree's name but it's kind of hard to tell now so you'll have to ID them yourself- we saw white oak, red oak, pine, maple (with helicopters), holly, and sweet gum:

C holding a spiky ball from our sweet gum!