One morning, we decided to go to Kyker Bottoms Wildlife Refuge to see if we could see some tadpoles. There were lots of them, and some had already grown their legs. The ones we found were toad tadpoles.
Here are some ways to tell toad and frog tadpoles apart are. (1, Toad tadpoles are black during the day, while frog tadpoles are brown with spots, stripes and clear spots. (2, Toad tadpoles have football shaped eyeballs, and are smaller than frogs. (3, Frog tadpoles hide from the sun during the hottest part of the day, stay in one place for long periods of time, and tend to wander independently. Toads, on the other hand, will sit in the direct sun, flick their tails even if they are not swimming, and gather in schools near the edges of banks.
We also found a Black Swallowtail caterpillar on some parsley from our garden. Last year we found about five or six of them.
For the past three years we have had a chickadee come and lay eggs in our birdhouse. The eggs are white with orange/brown speckles. We also had a robin nesting in a tree beside our house. Their eggs are blue with darker blue speckles.
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My dad got us this book one year for Christmas and I stuck it in a drawer. We had put up a bird feeder and a birdhouse (for decor) outside our living room window. One day we saw some amazing birds at the feeder. One of them we have not seen since...it was a Rose Breasted Grosbeak. We could not believe how beautiful this bird was and I remembered that bird book! We pulled it out and identified our first bird. Then, we noticed a bird going in and out of the birdhouse that I had put up...strictly for looks. When we checked inside, there were tiny little eggs! Then the eggs hatched and we watched the birds grow and fly away. We also got the book out to identify them as Carolina Chickadees. Luke, who was then 7, started looking through the book and then started reading it...cover to cover. One huge blessing out of this, was that he had struggled with reading or really being interested in it at all. He had become so interested in these birds that he just had to read about them! He wore that book out and we had to order another one! 
, has been great! I take it everywhere we go and we use it to look up just about everything. It sometimes gives us little observation activities and gets us investigating and thinking. It's not just about wildlife, we've learned about erosion while at the river and trees and roots while hiking. It's a wonderful resource!
is an amazing book for older kids. Books like this played a huge part in us growing to love learning about creation. My kids got into the characters of these books without even realizing they were learning about different animals.
