Nature Finds - 06/14/12

Laguna Coast Wilderness Park is full of blooms and ticks at this time of year. Here's a list of what I can remember seeing in bloom today:

White Sage

Black Sage

Bush Mallow

Wild Grape

California Everlasting

Chalk Dudleya

Night Shade

Caterpillar Phacelia

Jimson Weed

Mexican Elderberry

California Sunflower (Encelia)

There were other yellow, telegraph weed type flowers in bloom as well as some purple flowers I never seem to be able to identify. 

We also found a tick crawling up a little girl's pants, two crawling across a picnic blanket, and one in my daughter's hair on the drive home - that was exciting!! We put it in a magnifying glass container and were guilty of "ticking" while driving :)

Arica found these large funnel webs along the side of the trail out to Barbara's Lake. The kids collected bugs and dropped them in the web and here's what happened:

You can read more about those on p.438 of The Handbook of Nature Study. I love that they include bits of poetry in there: 

And dew bright webs festoon the grass

In roadside fields at morning

~Elizabeth Akers

Chalk Dudleya

Ant Lion

Isabella painting California Everlasting

Ladybug on Black Sage

 California Everlasting

And here's a sweet song Isabella sent me for the kids about the parts of a flower: