Today in class we learned about caring more for the Earth. I shared my story about seeing a Scarlet Tanager.
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This morning I awoke at 5am to the lovely sounds of birds chirping! I went and visited my sit spot at about 7:30 am. I'm amazed that the sit spot challenge I started on April first is now finished with day 3o on today, July 12. Wow! It took me three months and 12 days to squeeze in 30 days at my sit spot. I want to aim to do better and I will! I've been very busy with getting ready for my move and preparing for summer classes, but I can still make it to my sit spot if I prioritize it and add it to my morning routine! It does really help to have one's sit spot literally in the backyard. If I didn't have community folks walking by my backyard, I would probably just sit in my backyard, which actually I may yet try to do since I'm moving anyway. As I made my way into the forest to my sit spot there was a spider web and upon closer investigation I saw that it was one of those very cool spider's with an arrow-shaped abdomen called the Arrow-shaped Micrathena. I believe it was this spider mentioned in Wikipedia: "Micrathena gracilis is a spider in the family Araneidae (orb-weavers), commonly known as the Spined Micrathena. This spider spins a moderately large (can be 30 cm (11.81 in) or more across), very tightly coiled web, often in wooded or brushy areas. It is completely harmless to humans." Here are some cool creative commons pictures of what she looked like. I should have thought to take pictures of her, but instead I dismantled her web to get to my sit spot. Wished now that I had been more sensitive and had walked around her web since I'm sure it must have taken her quite a bit of time to make it and she was probably still trying to catch her morning breakfast. Enjoy these great creative commons images from wikipedia! I continued the less than a minute walk it took me to get to my sit spot and then sat down on my stump. The air was still cool with a bit of moisture since it had rained the previous evening. The forest had that lovely earthy smell I adore so much. The early morning chatter of birds I had hear at 5am had pretty much ended accept for two crows calling back and forth to each other.
I looked down at the leaf litter forest floor to see two harvestmen spiders connected to each other's abdomen. There was a smaller one and a larger one. At first they looked to be fighting as they danced about the forest floor, but I realized this was a mating ritual. I wanted to take a video, however as soon as I turned on my flip video, the sound scared them and they each scattered in different directions. Again, I felt disappointed in myself that I had disrupted the animals. I need to find my groove again in the forest and the only way to do that is to come more often and practice low impact by fox walking and being gentle, quiet and observant of the animal before zooming in for photos or disrupting their homes. All in all, it was a beautiful sit spot experience which I'm happy to share with you! |
AuthorI'm Natureglo, founder of Natureglo's eScience! I'm an avid nature lover, photographer, hiker, full time camper and an online teacher. Categories
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