We are moving!

The NatureBlog is moving! The website location will stay the same, but the content is about to change. We are in the midst of moving to a new area.

I will no longer post about our backyard happenings in Athens, Georgia, but instead will have all new posts about our new backyard in Cary, North Carolina.

Here is a picture of our new backyard:

So far we have heard some different bird species, and have seen many plant species that we did not have in our Athens backyard.

I will not be posting for a few weeks as we move and get settled in, but I will be posting all about all the new nature we find starting in January. So stay tuned!

So what's in your compost?

I found this cool post about compost creatures. They took one cup of compost from a backyard compost bin and found 14 different species living in it! I am going to give this a try next spring, take a cup and see just what is living in the compost in my backyard.


To read the post see this link.

To learn more about composting see this link.

We pause for a moment to take in the Autumn colors...

Robins and more robins

This morning I found a flock of American Robins in the backyard. During the fall and winter robins get together and travel in large flocks. It is a lot of fun to see a large flock descend on the backyard, crowding in the bird bath, eating what is left of the pokeweed berries, fighting with the resident Mockingbird.

On Journey North’s website they have a great way to distinguish a winter/migrant robin from a spring robin:

Winter and migratory behaviors include:

• Feeding in flocks
• Eating fruit
• Flying in flocks
• Getting along peacefully

Spring behaviors include:

• Running on lawns
• Eating worms
• Singing
• Territorial battles
• Carrying nesting materials

To learn more about Journey North’s Spring Robin program, see this site.

First Freeze

Brrr..

Had our first freeze today, the low this morning was 32.1 degrees! There was a light frost covering the backyard, which means that the grasses and herbaceous plants will begin to die back, but have you ever wondered why some plants do not freeze?

Well, there are two main reasons why some plants stay green all winter and never freeze. Some plants such as Pine trees do not have a lot of water, so they cannot freeze. Other plants can make their own “anti-freeze” protein which protects their cell walls and plant tissue from being crushed by ice crystals.

Other perennial plants (plants that live for 2 years or more) go dormant during the winter. Herbaceous plants completely die back above ground, leaving only roots below ground. Woody plants drop their leaves. While dormant, they are not moving water and nutrients through their system, so when it freezes, they are protected.

To learn more about winter plant adaptations see this link.