I saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth is a reference to a classic American artwork, but this is the 5th class and we did in fact create scat and I was elected to be the artist in my group...which will be my answer the next time someone asks me if I'm still making art. This past week we had another class out at Hornsby Bend...even more poop talk there, but we had a chance to visit about the value of the poop making exercise and for those of us who got messy...we remembered the shape and size and found it applicable.
Rodents, I passed on handling the rats but was drawn to the bats! I'd never been close to one and they do look a bit like flying rats but with a more interesting face.
What's missing? The Mexican Free tail...the one I really wanted to investigate! We learned about the 33 bat species in Texas and how they break down into 4 major groups: New World Leaf-nosed Bats, pollen and nectar collectors including the Vampire Bat, Vesper or Evening Bats, the furry Tree Bats who are mostly solitary and the bonnet eared Free-tailed Bats, of which we have here under the Congress St. Bridge...btw, those are mostly females as that's a nursery.
Dr. Pamela Owen, Evolutionary Biologist with a "major carnivore bias." Dr. Owen's enthusiasm caught on immediately, and the props made the day come alive, even before we visited the animal rehab at the Austin Science and Nature Center.
Shrews, moles, gophers and badgers have orange front teeth making them easy to identify in the wild. The front teeth don't have enamel and continue to grow throughout the lifespan.
Unmistakable shape of the Armadillo skull. The Nine-banded Armadillo is moving north into the U.S. via waterways but won't get too far without some serious evolving. Their keratinous plated armor isn't solid like the turtle and they can't thermoregulate. The other cool thing about them is that they always have identical quadruplets, which makes them an easy target for scientific investigation and their fossil record goes back to the Ice Age!
The night before, Kris set up a square meter of find sand, flour or bentonite to check for animal prints. In the center she poured out some rancid sardine oil to attract critters. After we had a bit of time to try and figure out what had visited the area, Dr. Owens demonstrated how to prepare a track for making a mold. She simply cut a two inch strip of cardboard from an office folder bent around into a circle and held it with a paperclip. Then she mixed plaster of Paris with water to a cake batter consistency and poured it into the track print after spraying it with cooking oil.
Can you guess who visited this Scent Station?
Kris Thorne is one of our class coordinators, and Scat Expert. She investigated the area and came up with a few additional samples of visitors from the night before, vegetarians who weren't interested in the sardine oil but who left behind some seedy byproduct!
Old scat samples
I was on team 3, and here's our scat made from chocolate cookie dough and various seeds and candies to represent the diet of our critter...tada...it's skunk-scat!
We then had a contest to see who knows their scat.
The big pond outside at the Nature Center.
More big pond...it was buzzing with life!
I do believe we're all gathered around the Coati (commonly called the hog-nosed coon, Brazilian aardvark or snookum-bear) are endangered in Texas and will most likely disappear with the introduction of "the fence."
Sweet scavenger coyote.
This is the fattest Bob Cat I've ever seen. All the animals are rescued and injured. They won't be able to be released into the wild so they've made them as comfortable as possible. I wasn't able to capture them all, and there are quite a few wild and rare species worth seeing.
The Austin Nature and Science Center(ANSC) is best described as a "living museum" with an educational agenda. They are located at 301 Nature Center Drive, which is behind Zilker Botanical Gardens, parking beneath the Mopac Bridge. They offer all kinds of camps for kids and programs for adults and are always looking for volunteers! Contact the manager (seen here) at (512)327.8181 if you'd like to get involved and be sure to check their website for upcoming events!
The night before, Kris set up a square meter of find sand, flour or bentonite to check for animal prints. In the center she poured out some rancid sardine oil to attract critters. After we had a bit of time to try and figure out what had visited the area, Dr. Owens demonstrated how to prepare a track for making a mold. She simply cut a two inch strip of cardboard from an office folder bent around into a circle and held it with a paperclip. Then she mixed plaster of Paris with water to a cake batter consistency and poured it into the track print after spraying it with cooking oil.
Can you guess who visited this Scent Station?
Kris Thorne is one of our class coordinators, and Scat Expert. She investigated the area and came up with a few additional samples of visitors from the night before, vegetarians who weren't interested in the sardine oil but who left behind some seedy byproduct!
Old scat samples
I was on team 3, and here's our scat made from chocolate cookie dough and various seeds and candies to represent the diet of our critter...tada...it's skunk-scat!
We then had a contest to see who knows their scat.
The big pond outside at the Nature Center.
More big pond...it was buzzing with life!
I do believe we're all gathered around the Coati (commonly called the hog-nosed coon, Brazilian aardvark or snookum-bear) are endangered in Texas and will most likely disappear with the introduction of "the fence."
Sweet scavenger coyote.
This is the fattest Bob Cat I've ever seen. All the animals are rescued and injured. They won't be able to be released into the wild so they've made them as comfortable as possible. I wasn't able to capture them all, and there are quite a few wild and rare species worth seeing.
The Austin Nature and Science Center(ANSC) is best described as a "living museum" with an educational agenda. They are located at 301 Nature Center Drive, which is behind Zilker Botanical Gardens, parking beneath the Mopac Bridge. They offer all kinds of camps for kids and programs for adults and are always looking for volunteers! Contact the manager (seen here) at (512)327.8181 if you'd like to get involved and be sure to check their website for upcoming events!
2 comments:
It looks like your having a good time learning about nature. I sometimes forget that every one wasn't raised in the country and not consumed about knowing every thing about the flora and fawna like I have been all my life. I still live in the country and my wife, Lyn, says our 28 yrs. of marriage has just been one big adventure in learning about nature for her. She was an Air Force Brat and didn't know much about nature until we married. I am so glad she has always been interested in it.
Did they also tell you about Opossum babies and how porcupines mate?
As a matter of fact they did Bob:)
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