Fake eyes, and the swallow tail

This morning I was looking for a grasshopper to feed the praying mantis. In doing that I found a dark coloured swallowtail. Besides the the fact that it had dark colours it was still beautiful, it appeared to be be cold, because on my second try I caught it in my bare hands! And even after my hands were not cupped it didn't fly away at first. It was really amazing. After a while it it did fly away to a sun full spot it was beautiful. I read in a book the the name of this magnificent species check in the the next posts for it. Another amazing thing that happened was actually before the swallow tail encounter even though I wrote about the butterfly first. Anyway earlier in the month Davy and I witnessed some animal behavior thats possibly new to science! Well at least in our perspective.

Bird Kingdom

Yesterday we went to bird kingdom as a family it was a nice Sunday morning when we headed out. Bird Kingdom is a Aviary where lots of bird fly free around the place. With over four hundred species of bird alone not counting the individual birds them selves! That means the building is the the biggest aviary in the world!! They didn't have just birds there but also numerous species of reptile and a few amphibians. ( The frog and toad family) and like the birds a few of the the lizards looked like they could roam where they liked and didn't even have a cage!!! And one of the first places we went to there was a bird who would land on our heads and rip some of your hair out to make a nest!!!! And after we went to the place where the bird would pull your hair out we came to the biggest area of all and off to a little section of that there was a enclosure withe lorikeets in them. What we did was we paid some money for some nectar which was inl ittle cups I got to hod one of the cups and just like that my arms were covered in lorikeets all after the nectar. I had one on my right arm that peed in me.

Happy Rolf's

The ducks would eat right out of your hands!

Yesterday we went to Happy Rolf's. Happy Rolf's is a place where you can pet animals, feed animals, observe animals, and visit the bird sanctuary. They have cute little piglets and lambs too but the bird sanctuary, may as well be called a seagull sanctuary! All they did was just a skreachhhh!!! steal food and fight. There was also ducks (the only "real birds") there was a occasional grackle, sparrows and maybe a cardinal or maybe two. But the ducks were the best part was the ducks they were so much fun we really like them one sneaky duck was smart or so it seemed. He or she pecked my hand it looked like and dumped lots of my pellets off and he snapped them up. And there was even a duck who was a pirate in bird form he was a pegleg duck (he was missing a foot) and he did that step, kunk, step, kunk, kind of walk. it was a very enjoyable time.

The Toad

Recently I was digging on the dirt pile that came from our backyard. We then used that pile of dirt for a number of thing such as the following. Climbing, tunneling, and throwing pieces of dirt off and breaking at the bottom. And at one particular tunnel I was digging I looked away for some reason, I looked back at a my hole and there was a toad! And then he scrambled back into his den. It must have been living there already because it knew all the overlooked hideouts that only a persistent observer would notice. Jude, of course had quickly realized there was a toad in that little cave and was dying to hold it of course. I didn't want him to touch it, but Jude looked like he was using every ounce of self control he had. In the end I coundn't bear the look on his face so I let him hold and then I, and Jude were happier and then I just learned that your brother is more important than a warty old toad P.S. all toads who read this do not be offended.

Camp, Sports, and Cicadas

Last week the kids and Mom got away for awhile. We drove for about two and a half hours to get to Bethel Park camp. where we expierienced numerous displays of God's creation. One of the most amazing things was the wonders of the Cicada [say, sic-a-da]. Have you ever heard a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Chances are you likely have. It comes from a insect called a Cicada. Their parents lay their eggs in the trees and the young hatch and crawl out. They dig a burrow into the ground and then amazingly, they will stay their for seventeen years!! But that buzzing sound you may have heard is only the males making this call. After their 17 year sentence, at night they will crawl out of their underground prison and onto a tree. Then they will stop. After a while something amazing starts to happen. The adult Cicada crawls out of its old skin and and once out it will sit on its skin waiting for it's wings to straighten out and its bright green body to become darker. Some of the other creatures we ran into last week were a snake, (that Jude caught all by himself) and a toad. I did not want to catch this toad because it was at night and I couldn't see it to clearly. Believe it or not toads are poisonous. They have two poison glands on the top of their head that appear to be two bars or lumps, and if spueezed will spuirt poison. And yet another thing we did was played a game called tetherball and tennis which was a lot of fun.

Welcome to My Father's World

"The heavens declare the glory of God....."

Hi, my name is Jesse. This will be my blog that will glorify God, be about nature, and my own recent nature encounters. I hope that this blog will be of great interest to you and offer you enjoyment. (My sister Sydney took this picture)