We Love Durham NC

The Trees!

I feel like I’ve just seen a far-flung nephew or old playschool friend for the first time in a year… “My! How tall you are!” I’d say.

As it is, I’ve been either inside a building or outside only at night since Saturday, with a window overlooking a courtyard in a state of repair with no trees. (The sky has been beautiful, though.) So I didn’t know, but…

My! How beautiful the trees are! Saturday morning they were tinged with yellow, but now they are red & orange & yellow, in all shades. Those of you who have seen them every day over the last week, did you notice a gradual change, or did you wake up one morning to it? 

Look! Don’t miss it.

Fall Flowers

Squawkaphony

I was alerted to something happening outside by loud squawking. Bats? No, not this time of day. Smallish black birds with yellow beaks. I don’t know who was louder, the 100s of birds passing through or the resident cardinals and crows protesting at the trespass. I’m interpreting this as: the cold snap we’re experience is here for the season.

Leapin’ Lemurs!

We went on a field trip last Friday to the Duke Lemur Center (formerly the Duke Primate Center). The Lemur center features lemurs and other prosimians.

Tours last about 50 minutes and are $3 per person over 3 (less for 1-3 year olds and free under 1). Appointments must be made in advance, but a group is not required. It’s a perfect time of year to tour–the animals are not hiding in shade from too much sun, and not covered due to cold weather. (Ideals temps are 75-85, and they don’t sweat, so their cages are fanned/warmed during hot/cold days in North Carolina.)

Here are some shots to show what the view is like from the tour. They jump around a lot! and are very interested in people. Only a small portion of the animals at the Center are seen on tour, since viewing the animals changes how they act, and therefore affects the research. If you are a Zoboomafoo fan, check out the last two photos…yep, that’s the star himself.

For more close-up photos of lemurs, check out the Lemur Center website.

Deer Hunting in Duke Forest

If you like to go on long walks with your kids or dogs in Duke Forest, check the hunting schedule first!

Press Release About Deer Hunting in Duke Forest

Okay, it’s only Mon-Thu, only this fall, and only done by official hunting groups (NO PUBLIC HUNTING ALLOWED). It’s also isolated to two main areas, and most hunting will be done with bows.

Hummingbirds

Two hummingbirds just flew up to the window, hovering inches away to check us out. Then they flew into the tree and perched for 3 seconds before zooming away again. I thought hummingbirds didn’t perch. I wonder what they are eating in our yard.

Blacklighting

We went blacklighting last night at the science museum in Durham. Blacklighting is sitting in the dark with a really bright light, watching and collecting bugs attracted to that light.

The two blacklight stations were set up on the boardwalk leading to the bears and lemurs, one halfway and one down at the water area. The boardwalk, of course, goes over and beside the pond, juicy with bug life. The best time to blacklight is after a heavy rain when there is no moon, so conditions were not ideal, but we were able to see moths and beetles and various flies.

Leon, the entomologist who does the bug outreach programs, also to school groups, held an excellent Q&A as the last bits of sun went down. We learned that there are 4 kinds of “bugs” including insects, spiders, ‘pedes, and the kind you eat (shrimp and other crustaceans), and that there used to be a 5th kind, the trilobites.

About 75 people attended, mostly parents and children, but also some groups of adults. We were there from 8:30 to 10:30pm, and as the night wore on, most people left except the hard-core bug collectors.

A bright mercury light was set up to attract the insects, a UV light made them want to hang around, and a large sheet was hung to allow for easier viewing, and to give the bugs something to land on.

Our best find was a very big diving bug. (Looked like a roach to me.) The middle-school aged boy who had a container to capture it held it between his finger and thumb and said, “It’s biting me, ouch.”

Next time we will think to bring lots of containers to transport the bugs home and strong flashlights to spy all the loud frogs in the pond. And, yes, it does seem very backward to bring bugs into our house, but ’tis life with the Boy. As long as they stay downstairs, m’kay? And in their enclosures.

Oh, we also saw a bullfrog eating a tree frog, and heard a frog called a Banjo Frog. It really sounds like a loose banjo string.

Look at a Durham Naturalist’s photos of moths and other bugs here. 

Snips and Snails and Lizard Tails

The Boy ran in the house, holding something thin and blue-green, followed by the three girls with their eyes big and round. “I was holding a skink and it dropped its tail!” Everyone started telling the story at once… they had captured a skink (a hard thing to do) and the Boy was holding it by its tail (and under its body, he corrected) when all of a sudden it dropped its tail and ran up a tree. I am sure they were being gentle enough, but the thing must have been very frightened of little-kid squealing.

So now we have a skink tail in our nature tray. “Put it by the dead stuff,” he said. You know, the cicada shells and dried crawdads.

Cicadas

I went outside this morning to take a call in the quiet outdoors, only to discover the cicadas were louder than the indoors hubbub. My goodness, there are a lot of cicadas.

Conrad Found!

By word of mouth through the PAC3 list and a neighborhood list, we found the family who had been keeping Conrad safe for these days. Happy Reunion! Thank you very much to the family, and also the PAC3 list, the Independent Animal Rescue for mobilizing such great help, and everyone who looked for him.

(If you’re not on your PAC district newsgroup, do join! It is an excellent community resource. Find your district here.)

They’re a blur!

Dinosaurs in Durham

Dino Day at the Museum of Life & Science on July 12th ~ dig for fossils and have them identified by expert paleontologists, NC Fossil Club exhibits, dinosaur drawing lesson (registration required), bio-mechanics of dinosaurs, and storytime.

Creative face painting by Paint Savvy is also available–remember the face painting has a fee of around $5-7. Last time we were behind a family who ended up with 5 crying kids! You might also ask them to skip painting the eyelids. We ended up with tears of our own as the paint sweated off into The Boy’s eyes.

More Bugs

…although we hardly needed to ship him off to learn about bugs. This morning was so cool, we’ve been moving more of the rich log compost into our planters. The rotted logs have cities of bugs in them… black beetles and their fat white grubby babies, black ants, red ants, worms, slugs, other unidentified segmented bugs.

Bug Facts

The Boy hitched a ride to the Bug Facts class at the Southwest Library yesterday. He reports the program leaders were from the Natural Sciences Museum in downtown Raleigh, and that it was really about all invertebrates, because among other things, there was a baby octopus.

Ssssssnake!

We caught this little guy weaving through our planter and filmed his path across the yard up into a tree.