Spur-Thigh Tortoise Videos

Today we visited a reptile zoo full of cool reptiles. Here are some videos from this incredible place:

Legless Lizard Supper Time and Reticulating Python Videos

Talking Reptile and Soft Turtle Videos

Alligator and Alligator Snapping Turtle Videos

Olympic National Park-Hoh Rainforest

We went to the Olympic National Park again today. First, Austin made a new friend. Then we stopped and saw another huge tree. This one was 500 years old. Austin shared with us that they make guitars out of this kind of tree. How many guitars do you think could be made from this tree?
Then we went to the Hoh Rainforest. We stopped at the visitor center to learn some things and pick up a trail map.Our favorite thing by far was seeing elk, up close and personal, three different times!
More about the rainforests here:

Ocean-Born Forests
The lush forests in the Quinault, Queets, Hoh, and Bogachiel valleys are some of the most spectacular examples of primeval temperate rain forest in the lower 48 states. These rain forests once stretched from southern Oregon to southeast Alaska, but little remains outside of protected areas. Other temperate rain forests grow in a few isolated spots around the world including Chile, New Zealand and southern Australia.

Recipe for Olympic's Temperate Rain Forest

• Rain—lots of it. Storms off the Pacific Ocean drop much of their moisture on these west-facing valleys. Precipitation in Olympic's rain forest ranges from 140 to 167 inches (12 to 14 feet) every year.
• Moderate temperatures. In these low elevation valleys the temperature seldom drops below freezing and summertime highs rarely exceed 80°F.
• Epiphytes, or plants growing on other plants. Mosses, spike mosses, ferns and lichens festoon tree trunks and branches, giving the forest a "jungle-like" feel.
• Large, old trees. The dominant species are Sitka spruce and western hemlock, but other conifers and several deciduous species grow as well. Many are 100s of years old and can reach 250 feet in height and 30 to 60 feet in circumference.
• Nurse logs. Because of the densely covered ground, many seedlings instead germinate on fallen, decaying trees. As they grow, their roots reach to the ground. When the log eventually rots away, a colonnade, or row of trees on stilt-like roots, remains.
• Dead wood. When the massive trees die, they eventually fall, but can take centuries to slowly decay back to the soil. Throughout their long death, they provide important habitat for whole communities, including mosses, tree seedlings, fungi, small mammals, amphibians, and insects.
• Roosevelt elk. The thick, layered canopy above moderates the temperature year-round for wildlife, including the largest wild populations of Roosevelt elk in the U.S. On the forest floor, elk browsing shapes the appearance of their forest home.

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San Diego Natural History Museum

This is Show Family 2 reporting live from San Diego CA. We are almost all the way to the Mexican border here and we are enjoying the sunny weather. One of the fun things we've done while here is to visit this museum with models of dinosaurs. Are you as fascinated by these wonderful animals as we are? We learned all sorts of interesting things about them.

We also learned more about fossils while here. You can visit some of the links below to see what we did learn here.

Unit Studies/Teaching Guides
After the Dinosaurs: When Crocodiles Ruled
The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Lost World (K-8)
Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight

Puzzles
Dinosaur Word Search
Dinosaur Word Search 2
Jurassic Jumble

Games
Dinosaur Games & Activities (Experiments)
Dino and Fossil Activities


Math
Dinosaur Math
Math Learning Videos

Timeline
Geological Timeline (Printable)

Fun Facts
Paleontology FAQ

Books recommended by the Museum

Pets Rule Show at Sea World

One of the things we did while visiting San Diego, California was to visit Sea World. One of our favorite things we did there was to watch the Pets Rule show. It is a show were pets do tricks. Tricks like jump roping:
Jumping over a pole:
More jump roping:
and cheerleading:
and of course, a favorite trick-catching frisbees:
We think this show is neat because all of the pets they use are animals that have been rescued. We didn't show them here, but they also have pigs and cats in the show. What is your favorite trick out of all of the tricks here? We like the jump rope trick!

Hummingbirds

Show Family 2 here: One of the things we have done this past week, is to get bird feeders to hang outside of our RV. We were hoping to attract different birds so we could see them up close and personal.

The hummingbirds have been some of our favorite visitors:Some facts about the hummingbird:

They are the tiniest birds on the planet. They are famous for more than their beauty and size. They are the only bird that can fly backwards. When they hover in the air, their wings can beat up to 72 times per second!

Hummingbirds hearts beat amazingly fast too. The blue-throated hummingbird's heart beats at 1260 beats per minute. They can fly at a steady speed of about 29 mph.

Hummingbirds are BIG eaters. They can eat twice as much as their body weighs each and every day. That's about the same as if a kid who weighs 50 pounds ate 100 hamburgers a day.

Hummingbirds digest their food really quickly. It only takes about ten minutes for a fruit fly to pass completely through one end to the other of a hummingbird.

How long do these incredible birds live? When kept in a cage and cared for, they have been able to live as long as dogs-about nine to fourteen years.

Coloring Pages with Hummingbirds
Color Your World
Enchanted Learning
Jea
RubyThroat

Games
Online Jigsaw Puzzle

How You Can Help Hummingbirds
Operation Ruby Throat

Elk at the Grand Canyon National Park

This is Show Family 2 reporting from Arizona. One of the places we have visited while here is the Grand Canyon. We saw some elk while visiting here.

Elk are one of the largest species of deer and one of the largest mammals in North America and eastern Asia. They live in forests or on the edge of forest. They eat grass, plants, leaves and bark.

Here is a movie we took of one of the elk we saw:



More information about elk:

National Geographic

Lesson Plans/Unit Studies

Curriculum about elk
Too many elk? lesson plan

Coloring Pages

American elk
Elk coloring page
E is for elk page
Yellowstone elk page

Children's books

Ella, the elk

Squirrel at Grand Canyon National Park

This is Show Family 2 reporting from Arizona. Another animal we saw while visiting the Grand Canyon was the squirrel. Our niece Mikaylah was able to feed one by hand:





Squirrels are one of the most successful animals when it comes to learning to live together with humans. They mostly live in trees. They eat plants, nuts, fruit and some flowers. Sometimes squirrels try to move into people houses and have to be removed. I think they are so cute. Do you like squirrels?


More facts:
National Geographic

Games
Squirrel escape
Squirrel maze

Arts and Crafts
Nutty squirrels
Many squirrel crafts and activities
Pine cone squirrel craft

Coloring pages
Multiple pages of squirrels
S if for squirrel page

Books
Scaredy Squirrel

Bottle-nosed Dolphins at Sea World

Show Family Two reporting live from San Antonio, Texas: One of the things we've been able to enjoy at Sea World is the dolphins there. Here is some video that we took of them while we fed them (and others did too):


Some facts about the bottle-nosed dolphins:

Dolphins are mammals, not fish
Scientists believe that dolphins rank among the most intelligent animals
Bottle-nosed dolphins can measure 13 feet and can weigh as much as 600 lbs.
Bottle-nosed dolphins are gray, but their backs are darker than their undersides
Bottle-nosed dolphins show apparent great friendliness toward people
Bottle-nosed dolphins, living in groups of about 12, play and hunt food together
Bottle-nosed dolphins live in tropical waters and stay within 100 miles of land
Dolphins communicate via a series of whistles and clicks called phonationsMore Facts:
Facts and Fun Activities , Sea World Animal Bytes , About bottle nosed dolphins , More dolphin facts , And more dolphin facts , Kids Planet Facts , How dolphins use sonar





Games:
Coral Reef Creatures Game , Dolphin dash , Dolphin Diving , Drawing Game , Sliding Dolphin Puzzle , Crossword Puzzle , Dolphin Maze

Arts and Crafts:
Dolphin door Hanger , Dolphin and Whale Mobile , Dolphin Duo Card , Make a model of a dolphin , Dolphin and Boat pop up


Coloring Pages:
Many different dolphin coloring pages , Dolphins playing , More dolphin coloring pages

Books:
List of Kids’ books about dolphins




Unit Study/Lesson Plans:

Ocean Animals-dolphins unit study , Head for the Ocean Unit Study , Unit Study with Lapbook , Dolphin Unit Study , Dolphin Unit Study 2

****What do you like about dolphins? What do you want to share with us or ask us about dolphins? Leave a comment using the comment button below!

Gavin the Falconer

This is Show Family 2 reporting live from Lakehills, Texas:
This week, we met a really cool kid named Gavin. Gavin is a falconer. Here is Gavin with his mom and his sister.A falconer is a person who trains falcons or hawks for hunting. Gavin spent many hours learning lots of different things on top of having to apprentice or train under someone else in order to become a falconer. There are three falconers in his state that fly long wings like peregrine falcons. He and his father are two of those, so that means there is only one other falconer besides them. Gavin has his own falcon that he has trained. It took him many months to train his falcon and he is still training him to be better and better at hunting.

Falconry is one of the oldest forms of hunting and is often used together with hunting with horses and dogs. One of the differences between hunting with a horse or a dog and hunting with a falcon is the horse and dog are domesticated animals and the falcon is a wild animal. Falconry is the oldest field sport known to mankind.
Gavin also told me a bunch of neat facts about falcons. Here are some facts about these amazing birds:

Falcons have incredible eyesight. They are believed to be able to spot a pigeon from over five miles under ideal conditions. They are the swiftest of the birds of prey. In a dive, they can top speeds of 200 miles an hour. This makes them the fastest moving creatures on earth. It has been calculated that as a peregrine falcon comes out of a dive, and is straightening out for horizontal flight, it is pulling around 25G. Humans, on average, can tolerate 5-6G well.They are at the top of the food chain, so adults have no natural predators. The female is the boss of the house, so the male is cautious around her.How can these birds fly so fast? It is because of how they are built.

Falcons are very streamlined. They have pointed wings with slim, stiff, unslotted feathers. Because of this, they have almost zero resistance when flying. They have especially strong flight muscles that allow them to fly fast. They have a large, strong heart and ultra efficient lungs and air sacs. Everybody knows how difficult it gets to breathe when you're walking in a heavy storm. You have to turn your head to be able to breath. The falcon does not walk in the storm, it dive-bombs at 350 k/hour. Breathing would be absolutely impossible without special adaptions.The air pressure from a 200 mph (320 km/h) dive could possibly damage it's lungs, but small bony tubercles in a falcon's nostrils guide the shock waves of the air entering the nostrils (compare intake ramps and inlet cones of jet engines), enabling the bird to breathe more easily while diving by reducing the change in air pressure.To protect their eyes, the falcons use their nictitating membranes (third eyelids) to spread tears and clear debris from their eyes while maintaining vision.

Let's look at the lungs on a bird a bit closer. When a person breathes, air flows into its lungs and back out again. Bird lungs operate quite differently from ours. Instead of inhaling and then reversing flow when exhaling, birds have a clever lung design that permits them to circulate air in a single direction continuously.

Birds lungs with diagram and explanation

I can see why Gavin would want to work with such a fascinating animal!More resources on falcons:

Live webcams of Peregrine Falcons

Videos

Videos and slideshows , Video of falcon , Pigeon vs Falcon video , Facts and video clip

Coloring Pages

Falcon head , Peregrine Falcon , Another Peregrine Falcon Page , Falcon

Books
Audio: A to Z Mysteries: The Falcons Feathers

Raptor, A Kid's Guide to Birds of Prey , List of books for Young Readers , The Malted Falcon: A Chet Gecko Mystery

Facts and other Fun

National Geographic Kids Info on Peregrine Falcon (Has video, e-card and printable)

Birds of Prey Facts for Kids , Peregrine Falcon Facts , Facts and info on how to adopt a Peregrine Falcon

Games

Raptor Rescue Kids Games , Fierce Fliers Game , Peregrine Falcon Games

Arts and Crafts:

How to Make an Origami Falcon

Other Fun Stuff

Experiment related to Peregrine Falcon and DDT , Quiz on Falcons , Lesson plans on Falcons , Lesson Plans on Birds of Prey , Science Lesson Plan on Raptors , Unit Study with Falcon , Birds of Prey Unit Study ideas


*****Share your thoughts and questions with us through the comments section. Just click on comments and it will take you to the correct spot.

Whitetail Deer

This is Show Family Two. One of the things we have enjoyed since being in this part of Texas, is that the place we are staying has many whitetail deer here. We have been able to feed them right out of our hands.


The things we have fed them so far are carrots and corn that has been made into feed for deer. We bought a 50 pound bag of the corn, so we will have plenty of food to feed them during our visit.
This deer is named a whitetail because of its tail. The underside of its tail is white, and it's the only part that you can see when it is running.Some natural predators of deer are: man, bobcats, wolves, mountain lions and other deer. Some things that these deer eat are: acorns, hay, corn, apples, cabbage, pine, cedar and just about any green that they can get to.

The baby deer are called fawns. The fawns have spots which helps them be able to hide from other animals that might try to kill them.The whitetail deer have a language and some of the ways they "speak" are: flicking their tails, moving their ears, curling their lips and stomping their feet. The tail waving is typically used to warn other deer of danger. This deer saw our dog and thought it might be in danger:
We are really falling in love with these gentle creatures!

More facts about deer:
National Geographic

Some deer coloring pages:
*White tailed deer and some facts, *Many different deer, *Deer themed coloring pages,
*Deer pages and activivites

More fun:
*How to draw a deer ,*Deer arts and crafts , *Folding paper deer craft , *Pipe cleaner animals with fawn

Deer Games:
*Deer and Hunter Game , *Oh deer game

Books about deer:
*Lightfoot the Deer , *Fawn at Woodland Way , *My Little Book of Whitetails , *Whitetail Deer ,
*Bambi: A Life in the Woods

Online Books or Stories about Deer:
*Short story about deer , *The Tale of Nimble Deer

****Tell us what you like best about deer by leaving a comment.

****Are there any other things you want to say about deer? Leave a comment so we can all hear it.