October+NTM

October 7, 2014 __**Leaf** **Experiment**__ Over the weekend I decided to do an experiment. I found two trees, one oak and one maple, and I cleared the area of leaves. I was going to count how many leaves fall from the trees every fifteen minutes. Maple and oak are easy to tell apart because maple have sort of jagged edges that have three triangle shapes out of the top. Oak leaves are also jagged, but they are round at the bottom and pointy at the top. My hypothesis was that maple leaves will drop more frequently than oak leaves. The oak tree dropped twenty-one leaves and the maple dropped nineteen. I came to the conclusion that the oak drops more leaves every fifteen minutes. It might also have to do with the tree's age. Over a course of tests, I tried different sets of trees and oak still drops more than maple. My hypothesis was obviously wrong. An improvement I could have was to make sure there weren't any other trees around. That would affect the leaf count. Also, if i hadn't been so windy, I would have been able to keep track of the leaves easier. The pictures were found at http://photokitfrost.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/getting-ready-for-colorado-fall-peak-colors/ and http://ozarkmountainregion.com/ozark-mountains-fall-foliage-guide October 14, 2014 **__Once More, A Leaf Experiment__** This weekend, it wasn't as windy, so that was a good thing. Once again I counted the number of leaves that fell from the trees. I decided to use different trees and I was lucky to find a birch tree and an oak tree. After the last experiment, I hypothesized oak would drop more than birch. Birch trees leaves are jagged edged and are round at the bottom and pointy at the top like some oak trees. I could tell it was a birch tree by its white bark with black stripes in the bark. These oak leaves were rather different. They are rounded but have three long attachments. I counted how many leaves and the birch tree dropped twenty leaves and the oak nine-teen every fifteen minutes. It was close, but the birch tree dropped one more and looking back at the other experiment, it appears that my guess about the age was correct and my hypothesis was wrong again (oh well, such as my life) I would have counted the amount of leaves on each tree beforehand, but it would be time consuming and the leaves would fall. The pictures are from http://www.sophisticatedgardening.com/when-to-prune-a-birch-tree.html and ://photokitfrost.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/getting-ready-for-colorado-fall-peak-colors/// October 20, 2014 **__Bird Nest__** I observed an amazing site the other day. I watched birds abandon their nest and (what I think) migrate to, well, where ever they're going. I believe they were Crows. Although, it may not have been necessarily their nest and they might not be migrating, I think that's what happened. Their nest seemed to be made of hay from the barn down the road, dried grass, feathers, and my dogs fur. There didn't appear to be any remains of egg shell, but it might have had some in at one point. The nest was found on top of my roof, which explains how they managed to take some tufts of fur.What made me think they were crows is I found a black feather in their nest. A crows scientific name is //Crovus.// The picture is from [|www.arkive.org]  October 27, 2014 __**Squirrel Hiding Nuts**__ I found a few squirrels storing nuts the other day. They were storing acorns and other nuts I do not recognize. They were digging small holes, putting them under roots, putting them into hollow trees, they put them everywhere. The scientific name for a squirrel is //Sciuridae// I also looked at the crows again. The crows did not come back. They appear to have migrated. I also did my final leaf experiment. I counted 30 from an oak and 31 from a maple. It was very close this time. This new picture was found at http://hazelmariablakeley.blogspot.com/2012/11/hide-and-seek-with-red-squirrel.html