{"id":783143,"date":"2010-08-30T17:28:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T01:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homeschoolblogger.com\/leigharev2\/?p=783143"},"modified":"2011-10-08T03:54:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-08T03:54:13","slug":"cosumnes-river-preserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/2010\/08\/30\/cosumnes-river-preserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosumnes River Preserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cosumnes River Preserve<\/a> is located a little less than an hour drive from us.\u00a0 This last Saturday, I took the boys on a ‘photo walk’, hosted by the property.\u00a0 Volunteer naturalist Jim took us on a 2 mile walk, taking in a small part of the preserve…<\/p>\n

Getting ready to take some pictures!
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First bird spotted…a hummingbird!
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Second animal spotted…a little bush rabbit!
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Our host, Jim, showing us an oak gall.
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Oak galls are very common in this area, but something I\u00a0have never seen\u00a0in Washington.\u00a0\u00a0 The boys like to use them as “grenades”.\u00a0 \u00a0The growths, called “galls,” are\u00a0 the result of a type of wasp.\u00a0 The wasp\u00a0pierces a tree with its egg laying device and deposits an egg inside the plant tissue. Fluids deposited with the egg cause the plant cell multiplication process to begin.\u00a0 \u00a0The larva develops within a cavity inside the gall, feeding on material produced.\u00a0 \u00a0At maturity, the larva transforms into a pupa, and later becomes an adult that chews its way out of the gall.\u00a0 By causing the tree to form a gall, the wasp has provided food and shelter for its offspring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The oak galls still on the tree…
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A different kind of oak gall.\u00a0 It looks like a bright red chocolate chip!
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Cattails…
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The boys had toggled between cameras and binoculars…
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While on the trail, we came across a small vertical trench that ran across both sides of the trail.\u00a0 Turns out this is an otter slide.\u00a0 Otters and beavers use this as a pathway…
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Observing an egret feather…
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A crawdad claw…
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Wild grapes;\u00a0 apparently an invasive plant in this area…
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One of many wood duck boxes.\u00a0 Ducks that actually nest in trees!
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Some cool fungus…
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Tracking birds in flight…
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A huge turkey vulture…
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Exploring the Visitors Center…
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Cosumnes River Preserve is located a little less than an hour drive from us.\u00a0 This last Saturday, I took the boys on a ‘photo walk’, hosted by the property.\u00a0 Volunteer naturalist Jim took us on a 2 mile walk, taking in a small part of the preserve… Getting ready to take some pictures! First bird […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-783143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-homeschool"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":784564,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783143\/revisions\/784564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}